TEXT BOOKS. ELEMENTARY HYDROSTATICS BY W. H. BESANT, M.A., F.R.S. LECTURER AND LATE FELLOW OF ST JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE: LONDON: BELL AND DALDY. PREFACE. I HAVE endeavoured in the following treatise to place before the student a complete series of those propositions in Hydrostatics, the solution of which can be effected without the aid of the Differential Calculus, and to illustrate the theory by the description of many Hydrostatic Instruments, and by the insertion of a large number of examples and problems. In doing this I have had in view the courses of preparation necessary for the first three days of the Examination for the Mathematical Tripos, for some of the Examinations of the University of London, and for various other Examinations in which more or less knowledge of Hydrostatics is required. As far as possible the whole of the propositions are strictly deduced from the definitions and axioms of the subject, but it is occasionally necessary to assume empirical results, and these assumptions are distinctly pointed out. I have thought it advisable to give a slight account of some cases of fluid motion, and also to give an explanation of some of the more important phenomena of sound; in each of these cases I have assumed, as the basis of reasoning, certain facts which can be deduced from theory by an analytical investigation, but which it may be useful to the student to accept as experimental results. The Geometrical facts which are enunciated at the end of the Introduction are such as can be demonstrated without the aid of the Differential Calculus. |