Page:Thoughts on art and life.djvu/196

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because the sound caused by percussion under water is scarcely noticeable, and it would be less than noticeable in the case of dense bodies. The friction of polished bodies produces no sound, and a similar result would be produced in the contact or friction of the spheres; and if the spheres are not polished in their contact and friction, it follows that they are rough. Again, their contact is not continuous; this being the case a vacuum is produced, which it has been proved does not exist in nature. Therefore we conclude that friction would have consumed the ends of each sphere, and in proportion as a sphere has a greater velocity in the centre than at the poles, it would be consumed to a higher degree at the centre than at the poles; and then the friction would cease, and the sound would cease also, and the spheres would cease to revolve unless one sphere revolved eastward and the other northward.

44.

Worlds gravitate in the midst of their own elements. The yellow or yolk of an egg remains in the middle of the albumen without moving on either side, and is lighter or heavier or equal to this albumen; and if it is lighter it ought to rise above all the albumen and stop in contact with the shell of the egg; and if it is heavier it ought

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