Viewing page 66 of 195

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

[[Start page]]

124

Mr Esky this evening has directed my attention to the experiment of Savart on jets falling on a plate. The water is thrown out, and forms a parabola at one velocity and almost a sphere at another. Mr. E thinks that these have a bearing on the tensity of water.
[[image-drawing of circle with two lines exiting top]]

I have observed as stated on the last page, that when the soap bubble bursts, it appears to resolve itself into minute bubbles, and this fact appears to me to be connected with the vessicular condition of water in the form of fog [see Raimitze [[?]] Meteorology page 110]. Would not the vapors be condensed on the surface of a spherical portion of vapor? and would this not give rise to the insufficient formation of the vessicle? If this be the process, we would at first have a bubble of water enclosing vapors and air; the vapors would be absorbed by the sides of the bubble, since the forces [[stricken]] is [[stricken]] ^[[are]] greater then inversely as the square of the distance.
What ever be the method by which these little bubbles may be formed, it is certain that there is a tendancy in water to resolve itself into these forms.  If the insipient drop is not perfectly spherical, or I should say convex on all sides, the circular contractile force would tend to [[underline]] nip [[/underline]] it into a [[strikeout]] sphere [[strikeout]] hollow sphere.
[[end page]]
[[start page]]
December 18th 1844 [[squiggly vertical line]]
Breaking of wax and metal [Commencement of the vacation under new college  arrangement]   125
Made a few exp today on the breaking of sealing wax - found that the wax when partially softened so that it could be drawn out, broke so as to leave on the end of each piece a cup shaped orifice, of [[image - horizontal tube]] which this figure will serve to give an idea.
Also when the wax was stretched and elongated permanently, the stretching appeared to be greater on the outside, for when the cylinder of wax was supposed to contract, the surface exhibited a surface traversed crosswise with a great number of creases or folds, as if the [[strikeout]] outer [[strikeout]] surface had become too large for the inner part.
The explanation of the fracture exhibited by the wax is the same as the above.  The surface was unduly stretched, and hence when the rupture took place, the outside was too long for the inside. Or in other words, the outside of the wax had been stretched so as to take a set, and therefore could not recoil as much as the inside.
Next a piece of thin leaden wire was broken by pulling, when the same [[circled]] effect [[/circled]] as to the cup-shaped fracture at the end was exhibited as in the case of the wax.  Also a piece of copper wire was broken in the same way, and with the same result, except that the cup was not as deep as in the case of the lead.  
I found that when the lead was held in the flame [[image in margin - hand pointing]] of a spirit lamp, the metal was brittle, and the fracture a granulated plane surface.  Lead before it becomes liquid, assumes a granular texture like sand.