Page:Various Forces of Matter.djvu/77

Rh standing in the tube at will travel forward. Now we have discovered a means, by great care and research into the properties of various bodies, of preparing a solution of a salt which if shaken or disturbed will at once become a solid; and as I explained to you just now (for what is true of water is true of every other liquid), by reason of its becoming solid, heat is evolved, and I can make this evident to you by pouring it over this bulb;—there! it is becoming solid, and look at the coloured liquid, how it is being driven down the tube, and how it is bubbling out through the water at the end; and so we learn this beautiful law of our philosophy, that whenever we diminish the attraction of cohesion we absorb heat—and whenever we increase that attraction heat is evolved. This, then, is a great step in advance, for you have learned a great deal in addition to the mere circumstance that particles attract each other. But you must not now suppose that because they are liquid they have lost their attraction of cohesion; for here is the fluid mercury, and if I pour it from one vessel into another, I find that it will form a stream from the bottle down to the glass—a continuous rod