Page:Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Vol 1.djvu/361

Rh that pus does not contain so much potash or muriate of soda as is contained in the above expectorated secretions.

Dr. Pearson also thinks it much more probable that the circulating and secreted ﬂuids are impregnated with potash, as he has observed, than with soda, as observed by others.

Finally, we are informed, that expectorated matter contains glo- bules, which have not before been observed, and seem to the author to denote organization.

The theory of the ﬁgures of the planets involves two questions perfectly distinct from each other; ﬁrst, the ﬁgure which a mass of matter would assume by the mutual attraction of its particles, com- bined with a centrifugal force, arising from rotatory motion; and secondly, the force with which a body so formed will attract a par- ticle occupying any proposed situation. The latter is the subject of the present inquiry; and it is also limited to the consideration of homogeneous bodies bounded by ﬁnite surfaces of the second order.

This subject was ﬁrst partially treated of by Sir Isaac Newton, who, in determining the attraction of spherical bodies, has also treated of other solids, formed by the rotation of curves round an axis, and of the attractions they exert upon bodies placed in the line of their arms. MacLaurin was the ﬁrst who determined the attractions that such spheroids of revolutions exert on particles placed anywhere, either in or within their surfaces.

Le Gendre extended the same inquiry to particles without the surface of such solids of revolution.

La Place took a more enlarged view, and extended his researches to all elliptic spheroids, not formed by revolution, but such whose three principal sections are all elliptical; (1 he arrived at conclusions, with regard to them, similar to those of 1V acLaurin and Le Gendre.

But notwithstanding the ingenuity and skill displayed by La Place in this investigation, Mr. Ivory conceived that the inquiry might be simpliﬁed, and the results obtained more directly, by a method which forms the subject of the present communication; which, however, is of a nature not adapted for public reading.

Mr. Brande’s paper consists of two parts: ﬁrst, Observations on mucus and on the composition of liquid albumen; and secondly, On the composition of some animal ﬂuids containing albumen.