IN ELEMENTARY PHYSICS. BY BALFOUR STEWART, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S., PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS, VICTORIA UNIVERSITY, OWENS COLLEGE, MANCHEster. NEW EDITION. London: MACMILLAN AND CO. 1884. The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved. Thys 2+3.5.5 HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY GIFT OF PHILIP WHITNEY DAVIS LONDON: R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, BREAD STREET HILL, E. C. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. IN the following pages I have endeavoured to bring before the student, in an elementary manner, the most important of those laws which regulate the phenomena of nature; but the subject is so extensive that a detailed account cannot be given in such a treatise as this. The various branches of the subject have been so arranged that the student may perceive the connexion between them. For many particulars of this arrangement I am indebted to my friend Professor Tait. An account of the various active agents, heat, light, electricity, &c., must always form a large portion of a work on Physics. These have been regarded as varieties of energy -the laws of energy forming, as it were, the thread upon which the various divisons of the subject are strung together. The description of these agents is not, of course, materially different from that usually given; but by this means of connecting them together, the student is constantly reminded of the paramount importance of the laws of energy. |