Note 7 — Chapter III

M. A. G. has written us an interesting letter on the subject of similar experiments, which we here transcribe:—

“When a siphon of seltzer water has been opened some little time, and the equilibrium of tension is nearly established between the escaped gas and the dissolved gas, a vertical stream of bubbles is seen to rise from the bottom of the apparatus, which present a very clear example of the law of ascension of bubbles; that is to say (putting out of the question the expansion of the bubbles in their passage upwards), it is an inverse representation of the law of gravity affecting falling bodies. The bubbles, in fact, detach themselves from their starting point with perfect regularity; and as the interval varies in one file from another, we have before us a multiplied representation of that terrible law which Attwood’s machine made such a bugbear to the commercial world. I believe it is possible, by counting the number of bubbles that detach themselves in a second, in each file, and the number which the whole stream contains at a given instant, to carry the verification further; but I must confess that I have not done so myself.”