Micrographia - Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses with Observations and Inquiries Thereupon by Robert Hooke
page 92 of 465 (19%)
page 92 of 465 (19%)
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easily relinquish one another; and this, though the bodies be _aliquatenus_
fluid, and in motion by one another, which, to such as consider a fluid body only as its parts are in a confused irregular motion, without taking in also the congruity of the parts one among another, and incongruity to some other bodies, does appear not a little strange. So that besides the incongruity of the ambient fluid to it, we are to consider also the congruity of the parts of the contein'd fluid one with another. And this Congruity (that I may here a little further explain it) is both a Tenaceous and an Attractive power; for the Congruity, in the Vibrative motions, may be the cause of all kind of attraction, not only Electrical, but Magnetical also, and therefore it may be also of Tenacity and Glutinousness. For, from a perfect congruity of the motions of two distant bodies, the intermediate fluid particles are separated and droven away from between them, and thereby those congruous bodies are, by the incompassing mediums, compell'd and forced neerer together; wherefore that attractiveness must needs be stronger, when, by an immediate contact, they are forc'd to be exactly the same: As I shew more at large in my _Theory_ of the _Magnet_. And this hints to me the reason of the suspension of the _Mercury_ many inches, nay many feet, above the usual station of 30 inches. For the parts of _Quick-Silver,_ being so very similar and congruous to each other, if once united, will not easily suffer a divulsion: And the parts of water, that were any wayes _heterogeneous_, being by _exantlation_ or rarefaction exhausted, the remaining parts being also very similar, will not easily part neither. And the parts of the Glass being solid, are more difficultly disjoyn'd; and the water, being somewhat similar to both, is, as it were, a medium to unite both the _Glass_ and the _Mercury_ together. So that all three being united, and not very dissimilar, by means of this contact, if care be taken that the Tube in erecting be not shogged, the _Quicksilver_ will remain suspended, notwithstanding its contrary indeavour |
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