Page:Thoughts on art and life.djvu/208

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76.

When you collect facts relating to the science of the motion of water, remember to place under every proposition the uses to which it may be applied, in order that this knowledge may not be fruitless.

77.

This is a difficult question to answer, but I will nevertheless state my opinion. Water, which is clothed with air, desires naturally to cleave to its sphere because in this position it is without gravity. This gravity is twofold, — the gravity of the whole which tends to the centre of the elements, and the gravity which tends to the centre of the waters of the spherical orb; if this were not so the water would form a half sphere only, which is the sphere described from the centre upwards. But I see no means in the human mind of acquiring knowledge with regard to this. We must say, as we say of the magnet which attracts iron, that such a virtue is an occult property of which there is an infinite quantity in nature.

78.

In the motion of earth against earth the repercussion of the portion struck is slight. Water struck by water, eddies in circles around the spot where the shock has taken place. The reverberation of the voice continues for a

172

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