Capillarity

“ The front is composed of elastic, in which are inserted medicated plates, thus combining perfect support and elasticity."—Ladies' Newspaper.
"The perfect outline of the human body is so well delineated, that it proves at once the capability of that lady to adapt corsets to the most delicate figure, on scientific principles, which are the only ones adaptable to the human frame. We advise ladies to inspect the various inventions exhibited by Madame Caplin, and judge for themselves of the improve­ments made in this important department,"—Morning Post, July 4, 1851. ”

“ A small mass, or a simple line or accent, may be made to balance a very much greater mass. The greater part of a canvas may be one mass, and be balanced by quite a small spot. But leverage must come in to help. Somewhere in the picture will be the point of support, the fulcrum. And the large mass and the small one will have an obvious relation with reference to that point. Or the element of apparent density will come in. The large mass will be the least dense, the small [Pg 181] one the most dense, and the equilibrium is established. ”

“ The physical equilibrium which exists in the balanced “seesaw” of our childhood and the optical balance which is the result of the proper adjustment of masses within the confining edges of a design are similar, in that each is an equalizing of forces of attraction. In the former the force is gravity; in the latter, the attraction to the eye, which varies with the size and tone of the mass. ”

“ And the corset­maker who cannot perceive the requirements of those organs in their growth, maturity and decline, has not yet learnt the first lesson upon which all success in her art must be based. At the particular period treated of in this chapter, the common sense of everyone will suggest that it is the weak and yielding parts that require support, and that this must be done in such a manner as to give elasticity to the envelope and ease to the wearer ”

“ When a stream leaps down from the mountain side who is there to stem its flow? Once the air is set in motion who can prevent its blowing. When Kapalkundala lost the equanimity of her mind who would restore its equilibrium? When once the young tusker gets infuriated who can quiet it down? ”

“ The temperature of the body partakes of the extremes; there is generally a chilliness of the whole surface; the viscera of the pelvis are liable to derange­ment, and in married women especially. The lateral curvature of the spine is a consequence, not uncommon, of this pernicious practice."—Medical Times. ["It is in reference to such subjects as these that a visit to Madame Caplin's establishment, in Berners Street, becomes so instructive; for it is there proved that elegance of form is in no degree dependent on tight lacing."] ”

“ A line having no balance or symmetry in itself may become balanced. The line may be regarded as if it were a series of dots close together. The line is then a relation of positions indicated by dots. It is a composition of attractions corresponding and equal. It is only necessary, then, to find what I have called the center of equilibrium, the balance-center of the attractions, and to indicate that center by a symmetrical inclosure. The line will then become balanced.
Fig. 93
Here is a line. ”

“ When the stretch is of a certain amount, there is equilibrium—the action of the spring just balances the weight,—and if the spring be stretched further there will be a balance of pull developed tending to bring the system back towards the equilibrium position. ”

“ To satisfy the condition of equilibrium, as thus understood, it is necessary and sufficient that throughout the solid mass that throughout the surfaces where the solid meets the fluid and that throughout the internal surfaces of discontinuity where the suffixed numerals distinguish the expressions relating to the masses on opposite sides of a surface of discontinuity. ”

“ If we draw a line upon the primitive surface, dividing it into parts which represent respectively stable and unstable equilibrium, in respect to continuous changes, i.e., dividing the surface which is concave upward in both its principal curvatures from that which is concave downward in one or both, this line, which may be called the limit of essential instability, must have a form somewhat like that represented by in figure 2. ”

“ Madame Caplin has studied carefully, for many years, the anatomy of the body. This enables her to know precisely how to adapt her Corsets and Bodices to the human figure. She makes nothing at random; but adapts, in every case, what is worn on the body to the person who is to wear it. This knowledge of anatomy places her at the very top of her profession, for she can give ease and elegance united. ”

“ The most casual observer will, by bearing those two considerations in mind, perceive that what is required will be the elasticity of the upper and central portions of the corset, and the contraction of that part which supports the lower abdomen. In accomplishing this we aid Nature in the performance of her operations; when less than this is done, we either labour in vain, or else inflict a positive injury. ”

“ Transparency becomes universal, and they are all elastic. They now form but one set of substances, and the varieties of density, hardness, opacity, color, elasticity and form, which render the number of solids and fluids almost infinite, are now supplied by a few slight variations in weight, and some unimportant shades of color. ”

“ If you imagine a cylindrical mass, with a cavity dug in the centre, whose edge conforms to the exterior edge; and if you place in this cavity another cylinder, higher than that which surrounds it, but so small as to leave between its sides and those of the cavity a hollow space, you will gain as distinct an image of this hill as words can convey. The summit of the inner rock was rugged, and covered with trees of unequal growth. ”

“ The proposition of the greatest thickness if Solids, beyond which encreased they sink. When ever the excess of the Gravity of the Solid above the Gravity of the Water, shall have the same proportion to the Gravity of the Water, that the Altitude of the Rampart, hath to the thickness of the Solid, that Solid shall not sink, but being never so little thicker it shall. ”

“ Now, the same balanced form is necessary for the preservation of a revolving solid. The creator, therefore, of a revolving solid, would make it an oblate spheroid, that figure alone admitting a perfect equilibrium. ”

“ I answer, That these are but effects of Matters actions, and so is rare, and dense, and the like; but there are some Creatures which seem neither perfectly rare, nor dense, nor hard, nor soft, but of mixt qualities; as for example, Quicksilver seems rare, and yet is dense; soft, and yet is hard; for though liquid Quicksilver is soft to our touch, and rare to our sight, yet it is so dense and hard, as not to be readily dissolved from its nature ”

“ It is required to determine the conditions of stability for a system in equilibrium, consisting of two different homogeneous masses meeting at a surface of discontinuity, the perimeter of which is invariable, as well as the exterior of the whole system, which is also impermeable to heat. ”

“ And yet you know that a bubble made of suds has not only strength, but elasticity. Suppose a bubble of energy floating in space were to be covered to the depth of the thickness of a sheet of tissue paper with the dust of space, would that surprise you? ”

“ This precision has not been used for the sake of the mechanical part of the problem, which does not require the surface to be defined with greater nicety than we can employ in our observations, but in order to give determinate values to the superficial densities of energy, entropy, and the component substances, which quantities, as has been seen, play an important part in the relations between the tension of a surface of discontinuity, and the composition of the masses which it separates. ”

“ The tendency of the dark mass is to hold the eye at its center. The problem is to find the balance-center between the motion and the mass. I have done this, and the balance-center is indicated by the symmetrical outline of the diagram.
180. Some shapes hold the eye with peculiar force, and in such cases the [Pg 179] attractions of tone or measure or shape on the other side have to be increased if we are to have a balance. ”

“ If the centre of gravity of a cylinder happen not to coincide with its centre by reason of the want of uniformity in the materials of which it is composed, it will not be in a state of neutral equilibrium on an horizontal plane, as in fig. ”

“ It is possible, by taking thought, to add one cubit—or say a hand, or a dactyl—to your stature; you may develop powers slightly—very slightly, but distinctly, both in kind and degree—in advance of those of the mass who live in or about the same cycle of time in which you live. But it is only when the powers to which I refer are shared by the mass—when what, for want of another term, I call the age of the Cultured Mood has at length arrived—that their exercise will become easy and familiar to the individual ”

“ This is to be attributed to the increased chance of inequality.
(332.) No satisfactory results have been obtained either by theory or experiment respecting the laws by which solids resist compression. The power of a perpendicular pillar to support a weight placed upon it evidently depends on its thickness, or the magnitude of its base, and on its height. It is certain that when the height is the same, the strength increases with every increase of the base, but it seems doubtful whether the strength be exactly proportional to the base. ”

“ I know not whether the capillary Pipes in the bodies of small Trees, which we call their Microscopical pores, may not be such; and whether the congruity of the sides of the Pore may not yet draw the juyce even higher then the Air was able by its bare pressure to raise it: For, Congruity is a principle that not only unites and holds a body joyned to it, but, which is more, attracts and draws a body that is very near it, and holds it above its usual height. ”

“ In fact, a solid sphere of human beings would be formed having a diameter of 2,400,000,000,000 miles. Such considerations lead us to realize the absolute inevitableness of Nature’s checks upon reproduction.” (Social Evolution and the Evolution of Socialism, by George Shoobridge Carr, M.A., Cantab.) ”

“ So then the reason why uniform pellucid Mediums (such as Water, Glass, or Crystal,) have no sensible Reflexion but in their external Superficies, where they are adjacent to other Mediums of a different density, is because all their contiguous parts have one and the same degree of density.
Prop. II. The least parts of almost all natural Bodies are in some measure transparent: And the Opacity of those Bodies ariseth from the multitude of Reflexions caused in their internal Parts. ”

“ The medium is said to be permeable to the force, in greater or less degree than the standard medium, according as the variation of the density of the lines of force from the standard case, under otherwise identical conditions, is in excess or defect. A body placed in the medium will tend to move towards regions of greater or less force according as its permeability is greater or less than that of the surrounding medium232. ”

“ If they shift beyond the mark at the centre, they weigh heavily upon the place to which they have come nearer, like the weight of a steelyard when it moves from the point of equilibrium towards the end of the weighing apparatus. ”

“ Your third question is, Whether this sensitive self-moving matter be dense or rare? I answer: density and rarity are onely effects caused by the several actions, that is, the corporeal motions of Nature; wherefore it cannot properly be said, that sensitive matter is either dense, or rare; for it has a self-power to contract and dilate, compose and divide, and move in any kind of motion whatsoever, as is requisite to the framing of any figure ”

“ Suppose, for instance, that a man is accurately balanced in a scale-pan, and that some water enters his ear; of course he will become heavier in consequence, and if the balance be sufficiently delicate, it will exhibit the difference. But suppose a sound or a noise enters his ear, he may say with truth that something has entered, but yet that something is not matter, nor will he become one whit heavier in consequence of its entrance, and he will remain balanced as before. ”

“ Now, to give you an instance how the disproportion of some bodies in one respect, may be counter-ballanc’d by a contrary disproportion of the same body in another respect, whence we find that the subtil vinous spirit is congruous, or does readily mix with water, which in many properties is of a very differing nature, we may consider that a unison may be made either by two strings of the same bigness, length, and tension, or by two strings of the same bigness, but of differing length, and a contrary differing tension, or 3ly. ”

“ Their modifications are new directions, amplitudes of new vibrations, which place them in equilibrium with the forces which the ensemble of the aggregate, as modified by the environment, brings to bear upon them. These modifications endure as long as equilibrium endures, and are ever transmitted to the new units which spring from the former ones, until, on the equilibrium being disturbed, a new breaking-up of the existing relations necessitates others. ”

“ But I say, the parts that are rotten give elasticity to those that are sound: they give them elasticity, elasticity, elasticity. If it were all sound, it would break by its own obstinate stiffness: the soundness is checked by the rottenness, and the stiffness is balanced by the elasticity. ”