Page 275 - Third Book of Reading Lessons

274 THIRD BOOK OF
word. It was und that bodies oating in water, near to each other, approached and ebly cohered; that any cqntiguous hanging bodies were drawn to­ wards each other, so as not to hang quite perpen­ dicularly ; and that a. plummet, suspended near a hil1, was drawn towards the hill with rce only so much less than that with which it was drawn to­ wards the earth, viz., the weight of the plummet, as the hill was smaller than the earth. It was then proved, that weight itself is only an instance of a more general mutual attraction, operating between all the constituent elements of this globe; and which explains, moreover, the - ct of the rotundi of the globe, all the pats being drawn towards a common centre ; as also the rm of dew-drops, globules of mercury, and of many other things ; which, still further, is the reason why the. distinct particles of which any solid mass, as a stone or a piece of metal, is composed, cling together as a mass, but which, when overcome by the repulsion of heat, allows the same particles to assume the form of a liquid or air. It was rther observed, that all the heavenly bodies are round, and must, there re, consist of materials obeying the same law : and lastly, that these bodies, however distant, attract each other; r that the
tides of our ocean rise in obedience to the attraction of the moon, and become high or spring tides, when the moon and sun operate in the same direction. Thus the sublime truth was at last made evident by the genius of the immortal Newton, that there is a power of attraction connecting together the bodies of this solar system at least, and probably limited only by the bounds of the universe.
ARNO .