STRENGTH OF MATERIALS, In Mechanics, is a subject of so much importance, that in a nation so eminent as this for invention and ingenuity in every species of manufacture, and in particular so distinguished for its improvements in machinery of every kind, it is somewhat singular that no writer has treated it in the detail which its importance and difficulty demand. The man of science who visits our great manufactories is delighted with the ingenuity which he observes in every part, the innumerable inventions which come even from individual artisans, and the determined purpose of improvement and refinement which he sees in every workshop. Every cotton-mill appears an academy of mechanical science; and mechanical invention is spreading from these fountains over the whole kingdom. But the philosopher is mortified to see this ardent spirit cramped by ignorance of principle, and many of those original and brilliant thoughts obscured and clogged with needless and even hurtful additions, and a complication of machinery which checks improvement even by its appearance of ingenuity. There is nothing in which this want of scientific education, this ignorance of principle, is so frequently observed, as in the injudicious proportion of the parts of machines and other mechanical structures; proportions and forms of parts in which the strength and position are nowise regulated by the strains to which they are exposed, and where repeated failures have been the only lessons.

The strength of materials arises immediately or ultimately from the cohesion of the parts of bodies. Our examination of this property of tangible matter has as yet been very partial and imperfect, and by no means enables us to apply mathematical calculations with precision and success. The various modifications of cohesion, in its different appearances of perfect softness, plasticity, ductility, elasticity, hardness, have a mighty influence on the strength of bodies, but are hardly susceptible of measuremerit. Their texture, whether uniform like glass and ductile metals, crystallized or granulated like other metals and freestone, or fibrous like timber, is a circumstance no less important; yet even here, although we derive some advantage from remarking to which of these forms of aggregation a substance belongs, the aid is but small. All we can do in this want of general principles is, to make experiments on every class of bodies. Accordingly philosophers have endeavoured to instruct the public in this particular. The Royal Society of London, at its very first institution, made many experiments at their meetings, as may be seen in the first registers of the society; and since then a vast multitude of experiments have been made by public bodies and private individuals. The best of these, perhaps, up to the date of the present edition, are those of Mr Barlow.

But to make use of any experiments, there must be employed some general principle try which we can generalize their results. They will otherwise be only narrations of detached facts. We must have some notion of that intermedium, by the intervention of which an external force applied to one part of a lever, joist, or pillar, occasions a strain on a distant part. This can be nothing but the cohesion between the parts. It is this connecting force which is brought into action, or, as we more shortly express it, excited. This action is modified in every part by the laws of mechanics. It is this action which we call the strength of that part, and its effect is the strain on the adjoining parts; and thus it is the same force, differently viewed, that constitutes both the strain and the strength. When we consider it in the light of a resistance to fracture, we call it strength. [7:20:749] We call every thing a force which we observe ever to be accompanied by a change of motion; or, more strictly speaking, we infer the presence and agency of a force wherever we observe the state of things in respect of motion different from what we know to be the result of the action of all the forces which we know to act on the body. Thus when we observe a rope prevent a body from falling, we infer a moving force inherent in the rope, with as much confidence as when we observe it drag the body along the ground. The immediate action of this force is undoubtedly exerted between the immediately adjoining parts of the rope. The immediate effect is the keeping the particles of the rope together. They ought to separate by any external force drawing the ends of the rope contrariwise; and we ascribe their not doing so to a mechanical force really opposing this external force. When desired to give it a name, we name it from what we conceive to be its effect, and therefore its characteristic, and we call it cohesion. This is merely a name for the fact; but it is the same thing in all our denominations. We know nothing of the causes but in the effects; and our name for the cause is in fact the name of the effect, which is cohesion. We mean nothing else by gravitation or magnetism. What do we mean when we say that Newton understood thoroughly the nature of gravitation, of the force of gravitation; or that Franklin understood the nature of the electric force? Nothing but this; Newton considered with patient sagacity the general facts of gravitation, and has described and classed them with the utmost precision. In like manner, we shall understand the nature of cohesion when we have discovered with equal generality the laws of cohesion, or general facts which are observed in the appearances, and when we have described and classed them with equal accuracy.

Let us therefore attend to the more simple and obvious phenomena of cohesion, and mark with care every circumstance of resemblance by which they may be classed. Let us receive these as the laws of cohesion, characteristic of its supposed cause, the force of cohesion. We cannot pretend to enter on this vast research. The modifications are innumerable; and it would require the penetration of more than Newton to detect the circumstance of similarity amidst millions of discriminating circumstances. Yet this is the only way of discovering which are the primary facts characteristic of the force, and which are the modifications. The study is immense, but it is by no means desperate; and we entertain great hopes that it will ere long be successfully prosecuted; but, in our particular predicament, we must content ourselves with selecting such general laws as seem to give us the most immediate information of the circumstances that must be attended to by the mechanician in his constructions, that he may unite strength with simplicity, economy, and energy.

1. Then, it is a matter of fact that all bodies are in a certain degree perfectly elastic; that is, when their form or bulk is changed by certain moderate compressions or distractions, it requires the continuance of the changing force to continue the body in this new state; and when the force is removed, the body recovers its original form. We limit the assertion to certain moderate changes. For instance, take a lead wire of one fifteenth of an inch in diameter and ten feet long; fix one end firmly to the ceiling, and let the wire hang perpendicular; affix to the lower end an index like the hand of a watch; on some stand immediately below let there be a circle divided into degrees, with its centre corresponding to the lower point of the wire; now turn this index twice round, and thus twist the wire. When the index is let go, it will turn backwards again, by the wire untwisting itself, and make almost four revolutions before it stops; after which it twists and untwists many times, the index going backwards and forwards round the circle, diminishing, however, its arch of twist each time, till at last it settles precisely in its original position. This may be repeated for ever. Now, in this motion, every part of the wire partakes equally of the twist. The particles are stretched, require force to keep them in their state of extension, and recover completely their relative positions. These are all the characters of what the mechanician calls perfect elasticity. This is a quality quite familiar in many cases, as in glass, tempered steel, &c., but was thought incompetent to lead, which is generally considered as having little or no elasticity. But we make the assertion in the most general terms, with the limitation to moderate derangement of form. We have made the same experiment on a thread of pipe-clay, made by forcing soft clay through the small hole of a syringe by means of a screw, and we found it more elastic than the lead wire; for a thread of one twentieth of an inch diameter and seven feet long allowed the index to make two turns, and yet completely recovered its first position.

2. But if we turn the index of the lead wire four times round, and let it go again, it untwists again in the same manner, but it makes little more than four turns back again; and after many oscillations it finally stops in a position almost two revolutions removed from its original position. It has now acquired a new arrangement of parts, and this new arrangement is permanent like the former; and, what is of particular moment, it is perfectly elastic. This change is familiarly known by the denomination of a set. The wire is said to have taken a set. When we attend minutely to the procedure of nature in this phenomenon, we find that the particles have, as it were, slid on each other, still cohering, and have taken a new position, in which their connecting forces are in equilibrio; and in this change of relative situation, it appears that the connecting forces which maintained the particles in their first situation were not in equilibrio in some position intermediate between that of the first and that of the last form. The force required for changing this first form augmented with the change, but only to a certain degree; and during this process the connecting forces always tended to the recovery of this first form. But after the change of mutual position has passed a certain magnitude, the union has been partly destroyed, and the particles have been brought into new situations; such, that the forces which now connect each with its neighbour tend, not to the recovery of the first arrangement, but to push them farther from it, into a new situation, to which they now verge, and require force to prevent them from acquiring. The wire is now in fact again perfectly elastic; that is, the forces which now connect the particles with their neighbours, augment to a certain degree as the derangement from this new position augments. This is not reasoning from any theory. It is narrating facts, on which a theory is to be founded. What we have been just now saying, is evidently a description of that sensible form of tangible matter which we call ductility. It has every gradation of variety, from the softness of butter to the firmness of gold. All these bodies have some elasticity; but we say they are not perfectly elastic, because they do not completely recover their original form when it has been greatly damaged. The whole gradation may be most distinctly observed in a piece of glass or hard sealing-wax. In the ordinary form glass is perhaps the most completely elastic body that we know, and may be bent till just ready to snap, and yet completely recovers its first form, and takes no set whatever; but when heated to such a degree as just to be visible in the dark, it loses its brittleness, and becomes so tough that it cannot be broken by any blow; but it is no longer elastic, it takes any set, and keeps it. When more heated, it becomes as plastic as clay; but in this state is remarkably distinguished from clay by a quality which we may call viscidity, which is something like elasticity, of which clay and other bodies purely plastic exhibit no appearance. This[7:20:750] is the joint operation of strong adhesion and softness. When a rod of perfectly soft glass is suddenly stretched a little, it does not at once take the shape which it acquires after some little time. It is owing to this that, in taking the impression of a seal, if we take off the seal while the wax is yet very hot, the sharpness of the impression is immediately destroyed. Each part drawing its neighbour, and each part yielding, the prominent parts are pulled down and blunted, and the sharp hollows are pulled upwards and also blunted. The seal must be kept on till the wax has become not only stiff, but hard.

This viscidity is to be observed in all plastic bodies which are homogeneous. It is not observed in clay, because clay is not homogeneous, but consists of hard particles of argillaceous earth sticking together by their attraction for water. Something like it might be made of finely powdered glass and a clammy fluid such as turpentine. Viscidity has all degrees of softness, till it degenerates to ropy fluidity like that of olive oil. Perhaps something of it may be found even in the most perfect fluid with which we are acquainted, as we observed in the experiments for ascertaining specific gravity.

When ductility and elasticity are combined in different proportions, an immense variety of sensible modes of aggregation may be produced. Some degree of both are probably to be observed in all bodies of complex constitution; that is, which consist of particles made up of many different kinds of atoms. Such a constitution of a body must afford many situations permanent, but easily deranged.

In all these changes of disposition which take place among the particles of a ductile body, the particles are at such distance that they still cohere. The body may be stretched a little; and on removing the extending force, the body shrinks into its first form. It also resists moderate compressions; and when the compressing force is removed, the body again swells out. Now the corpuscular fact here is, that the particles are acted on by attractions and repulsions, which balance each other when no external force is acting on the body, and which augment as the particles are made, by any external cause, to recede from this situation of mutual inactivity; for since force is requisite to produce either the dilatation or the compression, and to maintain it, we are obliged, by the constitution of our minds, to infer that it is opposed by a force accompanying or inherent in every particle of dilatable or compressible matter; and as this necessity of employing force to produce a change indicates the agency of these corpuscular forces, and marks their kind, according as the tendencies of the particles appear to be toward each other in dilatation, or from each other in compression; so it also measures the degrees of their intensity. Should it require three times the force to produce a double compression, we must reckon the mutual repulsions triple when the compression is doubled; and so in other instances. We see from all this that the phenomena of cohesion indicate some relation between the centres of the particles. To discover this relation is the great problem in corpuscular mechanism, as it was in the Newtonian investigation of the force of gravitation. Could we discover this law of action between the corpuscles with the same certainty and distinctness, we might with equal confidence say what will be the result of any position which we give to the particles of bodies; but this is beyond our hopes. The law of gravitation is so simple, that the discovery or detection of it amid the variety of celestial phenomena required but one step; and in its own nature its possible combinations still do not greatly exceed the powers of human research. One is almost disposed to say that the Supreme Being has exhibited it to our reasoning powers as sufficient to employ with success our utmost efforts, but not so abstruse as to discourage us from the noble attempt. It seems to be otherwise with respect to cohesion. Mathematics informs us, that if it deviates sensibly from the law of gravitation, the simplest combinations will make the joint action of several particles an almost impenetrable mystery. We must therefore content ourselves, for a long time to come, with a careful observation of the simplest cases that we can propose, and with the discovery of secondary laws of action, in which many particles combine their influence. In pursuance of this plan, we observe,

3. That whatever is the situation of the particles of a body with respect to each other, when in a quiescent state, they are kept in these situations by the balance of opposite forces. This cannot be refused, nor can we form to ourselves any other notion of the state of the particles of a body. Whether we suppose the ultimate particles to be of certain magnitudes and shapes, touching each other in single points of cohesion; or whether, with Boscovich, we consider them as at a distance from each other, and acting on each other by attractions and repulsions, we must acknowledge, in the first place, that the centres of the particles (by whose mutual distances we must estimate the distance of the particles) may and do vary their distances from each other. What else can we say when we observe a body increase in length, in breadth, and thickness, by heating it, or when we see it diminish in all these dimensions by an external compression? A particle, therefore, situated in the midst of many others, and remaining in that situation, must be conceived as maintained in it by the mutual balancing of all the forces which connect it with its neighbours. It is like a ball kept in its place by the opposite action of two springs. This illustration merits a more particular application. Suppose a number of balls ranged on the table in the angles of equilateral triangles, and that each ball is connected with the six which lie around it by means of an elastic wire curled like a cork-screw; suppose such another stratum of balls above this, and parallel to it, and so placed that each ball of the upper stratum is perpendicularly over the centre of the equilateral triangle below, and let these be connected with the balls of the under stratum by similar spiral wires. Let there be a third and a fourth, and any number of such strata, all connected in the same manner. It is plain that this may extend to any size, and fill any space. Now let this assemblage of balls be firmly contemplated by the imagination, and be supposed to shrink continually in all its dimensions, till the balls, and their distances from each other, and the connecting wires, all vanish from the sight as discrete individual objects. AH this is very conceivable. It will now appear like a solid body, having length, breadth, and thickness; it may be compressed, and will again resume its dimensions; it may be stretched, and will again shrink; it will move away when struck; in short, it will not differ in its sensible appearance from a solid elastic body. Now when this body is in a state of compression, for instance, it is evident that any one of the balls is at rest, in consequence of the mutual balancing of the actions of all the spiral wires which connect it with those around it. It will greatly conduce to the full understanding of all that follows to recur to this illustration. The analogy or resemblance between the effects of this constitution of things and the effects of the corpuscular forces is very great; and wherever it obtains, we may safely draw conclusions from what we know would be the condition of a body of common tangible matter. We shall just give one instructive example, and then have done with this hypothetical body. We can suppose it of a long shape, resting on one point; we can suppose two weights A, B. suspended at the extremities, and the whole in equilibrio. We commonly express this state of things by saying that A and B are in equilibrio. This is very inaccurate. A is in fact in equilibrio with the united action of all the springs which connect the ball to which it is applied with the adjoining balls. These springs are brought into action, and each is in equilibrio with the joint action of[7:20:751] all the rest. Thus through the whole extent of the hypothetical body the springs arc brought into action in a way and in a degree which mathematics can easily investigate. We need not do this: it is enough for our purpose that our imagination readily discovers that some springs are stretched, others are compressed, and that a pressure is excited on the middle point of support, and the support exerts a reaction which precisely balances it; and the other weight is, in like manner, in immediate equilibrio with the equivalent of the actions of all the springs which connect the last ball with its neighbours. Now take the analogical or resembling case, an oblong piece of solid matter, resting on a fulcrum, and loaded with two weights in equilibrio; for the actions of the connecting springs substitute the corpuscular forces; and the result will resemble that of the hypothesis.

Now, as there is something that is at least analogous to a change of distance of the particles, and a concomitant change of the intensity of the connecting forces, we may express this in the same way that we arc accustomed to do in similar cases. Let A and B (fig. 1) represent the centres of two particles of a coherent elastic body in their quiescent inactive state, and let us consider only the mechanical condition of B. The body may be stretched. In this case the distance AB of the particles may become AC. In this state there is something which makes it necessary to employ a force to keep the particles at this distance. C has a tendency towards A, or we may say that A attracts C. We may represent the magnitude of this tendency of C towards A, or this attraction of A, by a line C c perpendicular to AC. Again, the body may be compressed, and the distance AB may become AD. Something obliges us to employ force to continue this compression, and D tends from A, or A appears to repel D. The intensity of this tendency or repulsion may be represented by another perpendicular D d; and, to represent the different directions of these tendencies, or the different nature of these actions, we may set D d on the opposite side of AB. It is in this manner that Boscovich has represented the actions of corpuscular forces in his celebrated Theory of Natural Philosophy. Newton had said, that as the great movements of the solar system were regulated by forces operating at a distance, and varying with the distance, so he strongly suspected (valde suspico) that all the phenomena of cohesion, with all its modifications in the different sensible forms of aggregation, and in the phenomena of chemistry and physiology, resulted from the similar agency of forces varying with the distance of the particles. The learned Jesuit pursued this thought; and has shown, that if we suppose an ultimate atom of matter endowed with powers of attraction and repulsion, varying, both in kind and degree, with the distance, and if this force be the same in every atom, it may be regulated by such a relation to the distance from the neighbouring atom, that a collection of such may have all the sensible appearance of bodies in their different forms of solids, liquids, and vapours, elastic or unelastic, and endowed with all the properties which we perceive, by whose immediate operation the phenomena of motion by impulse, and all the phenomena of chemistry, and of animal and vegetable economy, may be produced. He shows, that notwithstanding a perfect sameness, and even a great simplicity, in this atomical constitution, there will result from this union all that unspeakable variety of form and property which diversifies and embellishes the face of nature. We shall take another opportunity of giving such an account of this celebrated work as it deserves. We mention it only by the by, as far as a general notion of it will be of some service on the present occasion. For this purpose, we just observe that Boscovich conceives a particle of any individual species of matter to consist of an unknown number of particles of simpler constitution; each of which particles, in their turn, is compounded of particles still more simply constituted, and so on through an unknown number of orders, till we arrive at the simplest possible constitution of a particle of tangible matter, susceptible of length, breadth, and thickness, and necessarily consisting of four atoms of matter. And he shows that the more complex we suppose the constitution of a particle, the more must the sensible qualities of the aggregate resemble the observed qualities of tangible bodies. In particular, he shows how a particle may be so constituted, that although it act on one other particle of the same kind through a considerable interval, the interposition of a third particle of the same kind may render it totally, or almost totally, inactive; and therefore an assemblage of such particles would form such a fluid as air. All these curious inferences are made with uncontrovertible evidence; and the greatest encouragement is thus given to the mathematical philosopher to hope, that by cautious and patient proceeding in this way, we may gradually approach to a knowledge of the laws of cohesion, that will not shun a comparison even with the Principia of Newton. No step can be made in this investigation, but by observing with care, and generalizing with judgment, the phenomena, which are abundantly numerous, and much more at our command than those of the great and sensible motions of bodies. Following this plan, we observe,

4. It is a matter of fact, that every body has some degree of compressibility and dilatability; and when the changes of dimension are so moderate that the body completely recovers its original dimensions on the cessation of the changing force, the extensions or compressions are sensibly proportional to the extending of compressing forces; and therefore the connecting forces are proportional to the distances of the particles from their quiescent, neutral, or inactive positions. This seems to have been first viewed as a law of nature by the penetrating eye of Dr Robert Hooke, one of the most eminent philosophers of the last century. He published a cipher, which he said contained the theory of springiness and of the motions of bodies by the action of springs. It was this, c e i i i n o s s s t t u u. When explained in his dissertation, published some years after, it was ut tensio sic vis. This is precisely the proposition now asserted as a general fact, a law of nature. This dissertation is full of curious observations of facts in support of his assertion. In his application to the motion of bodies, he gives his noble discovery of the balance-spring of a watch, which is founded on this law. The spring, as it is more and more coiled up, or unwound, by the motion of the balance, acts on it with a force proportional to the distance of the balance from its quiescent position. The balance, therefore, is acted on by an accelerating force, which varies in the same manner as the force of gravity acting on a pendulum swinging in a cycloid. Its vibrations therefore must be performed in equal time, whether they are wide or narrow. In the same dissertation Hooke mentions all the facts which John Bernoulli afterwards adduced in support of Leibnitz’s whimsical doctrine of the force of bodies in motion, as the doctrine of the vires viva; a doctrine which Hooke might justly have claimed as his own, had he not seen its futility.

Experiments made since the time of Hooke show that this law is strictly true in the extent to which we have limited it, viz. in all the changes of form which will be completely undone by the elasticity of the body. It is nearly true to a much greater extent. James Bernoulli, in his dis[7:20:752] sertation on the elastic curve, relates some experiments of his own, which seem to deviate considerably from it; but on close examination they do not. The finest experiments are those of Coulomb, published in some late volumes of the Memoirs of the Academy of Paris, He suspended balls by wires, and observed their motions of oscillation, which he found accurately corresponding with this law.

This we shall find to be a very important fact in the doctrine of the strength of bodies, and we desire the reader to make it familiar to his mind. If we apply to this our manner of expressing these forces by perpendicular ordinates C c , D d (fig. 1), we must take other situations E, F, of the particle B, and draw E e , F f ; and we must have Od : F f = BD: BF, or C c : E e = BC: BE. In such a supposition F d ZB ce must be a straight line. But we shall have abundant evidence by and by that this cannot be strictly true, and that the line Bee, which limits the ordinates expressing the attractive forces, becomes concave towards the line ABE, and that the part B of is convex towards it. All that can be safely concluded from the experiments hitherto made is, that to a certain extent the forces, both attractive and repulsive, are sensibly proportional to the dilatations and compressions. For,

5. It is universally observed, that when the dilatations have proceeded a certain length, a less addition of force is sufficient to increase the dilatation in the same degree. This is always observed when the body has been so far stretched that it takes a set, and does not completely recover its form. The like may be generally observed in compressions. Most persons will recollect, that in violently stretching an elastic cord, it becomes suddenly weaker, or more easily stretched. But these phenomena do not positively prove a diminution of the corpuscular force acting on one particle: it more probably arises from the disunion of some particles whose action contributed to the whole or sensible effect. And in compressions we may suppose something of the same kind; for when we compress a body in one direction, it commonly bulges out in another; and in cases of very violent action some particles may be disunited, whose transverse action had formerly balanced part of the compressing force. For the reader will see on reflection, that since the compression in one direction causes the body to bulge out in the transverse direction, and since this bulging out is in opposition to the transverse forces of attraction, it must employ some part of the compressing force. And the common appearances are in perfect uniformity with this conception of things. When we press a bit of dryish clay, it swells out and cracks transversely. When a pillar of wood is overloaded, it swells out, and small crevices appear in the direction of the fibres. After this it will not bear half of the load. This the carpenters call crippling; and a knowledge of the circumstances which modify it is of great importance, and enables us to understand some very paradoxical appearances, as will be shown by and by.

This partial disuniting of particles formerly cohering, is, we imagine, the chief reason why the totality of the forces which really oppose an external strain does not increase in the proportion of the extensions and compressions. But sufficient evidence will also be given that the forces which would connect one particle with one other particle do not augment in the accurate proportion of the change of distance; that in extensions they increase more slowly, and in compressions more rapidly.

But there is another cause of this deviation perhaps equally effectual with the former. Most bodies manifest some degree of ductility. Now what is this? The fact is, that the parts have taken a new arrangement, in which they again cohere. Therefore, in the passage to this new arrangement, the sensible forces, which are the joint result of many corpuscular threes, begin to respect this new arrange ment instead of the former. This must change the simple law of corpuscular force, characterisic of the particular species of matter under examination. It does not require much reflection to convince us that the possible arrangements which the particles of a body may acquire, without appearing to change their nature, must be more numerous according as the particles are of a more complex constitution; and it is reasonable to suppose that the constitution even of the most simple kind of matter that we are acquainted with is exceedingly complex. Our microscopes show us animals so minute, that a heap of them must appear to the naked eye an uniform mass with a grain finer than that of the finest marble or razor hone; and yet each of these has not only limbs, but bones, muscular fibres, blood-vessels, fibres, and a blood consisting in all probability of globules organized and complex like our own. The imagination is here lost in wonder; and nothing is left us but to adore inconceivable art and wisdom, and to exult in the thought that we are the only spectators of this beautiful scene who can derive pleasure from the view. But let us proceed to observe,

6. That the forces which connect the particles of tangible bodies change by a change of distance, not only in degree, but also in kind. The particle B (fig. 1) is attracted by A when in the situation Cor E. It is repelled by it when at D or F. It is not affected by it when in the situation B. The reader is requested carefully to remark, that this is not an inference founded on the authority of our mathematical figure. The figure is an expression (to assist the imagination) of facts in nature. It requires no force to keep the particles of a body in their quiescent situations: but if they be separated by stretching the body, they endeavour (pardon the figurative expression) to come together again. If they be brought nearer by compression, they endeavour to recede. This endeavour is manifested by the necessity of employing force to maintain the extension or condensation; and we represent this by the different position of our lines. But this is not all: the particle B, which is repelled by A when in the situation F or D, is neutral when at B, and is attracted when at C or E, may be placed at such a distance AG from A greater than AB that it shall be again repelled, or at such a distance AH that it shall be again attracted; and these alterations may be repeated again and again. This is curious and important, and requires something more than a bare assertion for its proof.

In the article Optics we mentioned the most curious and valuable observations of Sir Isaac Newton, by which it appears that light is thus alternately attracted and repelled by bodies. The rings of colour which appear between the object-glasses of long telescopes showed, that in the small interval of 1 / 1000 th of an inch, there are at least an hundred such changes observable, and that it is highly probable that these alternations extend to a much greater distance. At one of these distances the light actually converges towards the solid matter of the glass, which we express shortly by saying that it is attracted by it, and that at the next distance it declines from the glass, or is repelled by it. The same thing is more simply inferred from the phenomena of light passing by the edges of knives and other opaque bodies. We refer the reader to the experiments themselves, the detail being too long for this place; and we request him to consider them minutely and attentively, and to form distinct notions of the inferences drawn from them. And we desire it to be remarked, that although Newton, in his discussion, always considers light as a set of corpuscles moving in free space, and obeying the actions of external forces like any oilier matter, the particular conclusion in which we are just now interested does not at all depend on this notion of the nature of light. Should we, with Descartes or Huygens, suppose light to be the undulation of an elastic medium, the[7:20:753] conclusion will be the same. The undulations at certain distances are disturbed by forces directed towards the body, and at a greater distance the disturbing forces tend from the body.

But the same alternations of attraction and repulsion may be observed between the particles of common matter. If we take a piece of very flat and well-polished glass, such as is made for the horizon-glasses of a good Hadley’s quadrant, and if we wrap round it a fibre of silk as it comes from the cocoon, taking care that the fibre shall nowhere cross another, and then press this pretty hard on such another piece of glass, it will lift it up and keep it suspended. The particles therefore of the one do most certainly attract those of the other, and this at a distance equal to the thickness of the silk fibre. This is nearly the limit; and it sometimes requires a considerable pressure to produce the effect. The pressure is effectual only by compressing the silk fibre, and thus diminishing the distance between the glass plates. This adhesion cannot be attributed to the pressure of the atmosphere, because there is nothing to hinder the air from insinuating itself between the plates, since they are separated by the silk. Besides, the experiment succeeds equally well under the receiver of an air-pump. This most valuable experiment was first made by Huygens, who reported it to the Royal Society. It is narrated in the Philosophical Transactions, No. 86.

Here, then, is an attraction acting, like gravity, at a distance. But take away the silk fibre, and try to make the glasses touch each other, and we shall find a very great force necessary. By Newton’s experiments it appears, that unless the prismatic colours begin to appear between the glasses, they are at least 1 / 890 th of an inch asunder or more. Now we know that a very considerable force is necessary for producing these colours, and that the more we press the glasses together the more rings of colours appear. It also appears from Newton’s measures, that the difference of distance between the glasses where each of these colours appears is about the 89,000th part of an inch. We know further, that when we have produced the last appearance of a greasy or pearly colour, and then augment the pressure, making it about 1000 pounds on the square inch, all colours vanish, and the two pieces of glass seem to make one transparent undistinguishable mass. They appear now to have no air between them, or to be in mathematical contact. But another fact shows this conclusion to be premature. The same circles of colours appear in the top of a soap-bubble; and as it grows thinner at top, there appears an unreflecting spot in the middle. We have the greatest probability therefore that the perfect transparency in the middle of the two glasses does not arise from their being in contact, but because the thickness of air between them is too small in that place for the reflection of light. Nay, Newton expressly found no reflection where the thickness was 2 / 5 ths or more of the 1 / 89000 th part of an inch.

All this while the glasses are strongly repelling each other, for great pressure is necessary for continuing the appearance of those colours, and they vanish in succession as the pressure is diminished. This vanishing of the colours is a proof that the glasses are moving off from each other, or repelling each other. But we can put an end to this repulsion by very strong pressure, and at the same time sliding the glasses on each other. We do not pretend to account for this effect of the sliding motion; but the fact is, that by so doing, the glasses will cohere with very great force, so that we shall break them by any attempt to pull them asunder. It commonly happens (at least it did so with us), that in this sliding compression of two smooth flat plates of glass, they scratch and mutually destroy each other’s surface. It is also worth remarking, that different kinds of glass exhibit different properties in this respect. Flint glass will attract even though a silk fibre lies double between them, and they much more readily cohere by this sliding pressure.

Here, then, are two distances at which the plates of glass attract each other; namely, when the silk fibre is interposed, and when they are forced together with this sliding motion. And in any intermediate situation they repel each other. We see the same thing in other solid bodies. Two pieces of lead, made perfectly clean, may be made to cohere by grinding them together in the same manner. It is in this way that pretty ornaments of silver are united to iron. The piece is scraped clean, and a small bit of silver like a fish scale is laid on. The die which is to strike it into a flower or other ornament is then set on it, and we give it a smart blow, which forces the metals into contact as firm as if they were soldered together. It sometimes happens that the die adheres to the coin so that they cannot be separated: and it is found that this frequently happens when the engraving is such that the raised figure is not completely surrounded with a smooth flat ground. The probable cause of this is curious. When the coin has a flat surface all around, this is produced by the most prominent part of the die. This applies to the meta), and completely confines the air which filled the hollow of the die. As the pressure goes on, the metal is squeezed up into the hollow of the die; but there is still air compressed between them, which cannot escape by any passage. It is therefore prodigiously condensed, and exerts an elasticity proportioned to the condensation. This serves to separate the die from the metal when the stroke is over. The hollow part of the die has not touched the metal all the while, and we may say that the impression was made by air. If this air escape by any engraving reaching through the border, they cohere inseparably.

We have admitted that the glass plates are in contact when they adhere thus firmly. But we are not certain of this: for if we take these cohering glasses, and touch them with water, it quickly insinuates itself between them. Yet they still cohere, but can now be pretty easily separated.

It is owing to this repulsion, exerted through its proper sphere, that certain powders swim on the surface of water, and are wetted with great difficulty. Certain insects can run about on the surface of water. They have brushy-feet, which occupy a considerable surface, and if their steps be viewed with a magnifying glass, the surface of the water is seen depressed all around, resembling the footsteps of a man walking on feather beds. This is owing to a repulsion between the brush and the water. A common fly cannot walk in this manner on water. Its feet are wetted, because they attract the water instead of repelling it. A steel needle, slightly greased, will lie on the surface of water, make an impression as a great bar would make on a feather bed; and its weight is less than that of the displaced water. A dew-drop lies on the leaves of plants without touching them mathematically, as is plain from the extreme brilliancy of the reflection at the posterior surface; nay, it may be sometimes observed that the drops of rain lie on the surface of water, and roll about on it like balls on a table. Yet all these substances can be wetted; that is, water can be applied to them at such distances that they attract it

What we lately remarked of water insinuating itself between the glass plates without altogether destroying their cohesion, shows that this cohesion is not the same that obtains between the particles of one of the plates; that is, the two plates are not in the state of one continued mass. It is highly probable, therefore, that between these two states there is an intermediate state of repulsion, nay, perhaps, many such, alternated with attractive states.

A piece of ice is elastic, for it rebounds and rings. Its particles, therefore, when compressed, resile; and when[7:20:754] stretched, contract again. The particles are therefore in the state represented by B in figure 1, acted on by repulsive forces if brought nearer, and by attractive forces if drawn further asunder. Ice expands, like all other bodies, by heat. It absorbs a vast quantity of fire, which, by combining its attractions and repulsions with those of the particles of ice, changes completely the law of action, and the ice becomes water. In this new state the particles are again in limits between attractive and repulsive forces; for water has been shown, by the experiments of Canton and Zimmerman, to be elastic or compressible. It again expands by heat. It again absorbs a prodigious quantity of heat, and becomes elastic vapour; its particles repelling each other at all distances yet observed. The distance between the particles of one plate of glass and those of another which lies on it, and is carried by it, is a distance of repulsion; for the force which supports the upper piece is acting in opposition to its weight. This distance is less than that at which it would suspend it below it with a silk fibre interposed; for no prismatic colours appear between them when the silk fibre is interposed. But the distance at which glass attracts water is much less than this, for no colours appear when glass is wetted with water. This distance is less, and not greater, than the other; for when the glasses have water interposed between them instead of air, it is found, that when any particular colour appears, the thickness of the plate of water is to that of the plate of air which would produce the same colour, nearly as three to four. Now, if a piece of glass be wetted, and exhibit no colour, and another piece of glass be simply laid on it, no colour will appear; but if they are strongly pressed, the colours appear in the same manner as if the glasses had air between. Also, when glass is simply wetted, and the film of water is allowed to evaporate, when it is thus reduced to a proper thinness the colours show themselves in great beauty.

These are a few of many thousand facts, by which it is unquestionably proved that the particles of tangible matter are connected by forces acting at a distance, varying with the distance, and alternately attractive and repulsive. If we represent these forces, as we have already done in fig. 1, by the ordinates Cc, D d , Ee, F f, &c. of a curve, it is evident that this curve must cross the axis at all those distances where the forces change from attractive to repulsive, and the curve must have branches alternately above and below the axis.

All these alternations of attraction and repulsion take place at small and insensible distances. At all sensible distances the particles are influenced by the attraction of gravitation; and therefore this part of the curve must be a hyperbola whose equation is y=p∙ What is the form of the curve corresponding to the smallest distance of the particles? that is, what is the mutual action between the particles just before their coming into absolute contact? Analogy should lead us to suppose it to be repulsion; for solidity is the last and simplest form of bodies with which we are acquainted. Fluids are more compounded, containing fire as an essential ingredient. We should conclude that this ultimate repulsion is insuperable, for the hardest bodies are the most elastic. We are fully entitled to say that this repelling force exceeds all that we have ever yet applied to overcome it; nay, there are good reasons for saying that this ultimate repulsion, by which the particles are kept from mathematical contact, is really insuperable in its own nature, and that it is impossible to produce mathematical contact.

We shall just mention one of these, which we consider as unanswerable. Suppose two atoms, or ultimate particles of matter, A and B. Let A be at rest, and B move up to it with the velocity 2: and let us suppose that it comes into mathematical contact, and impels it (according to the common acceptation of the word). Both move with the velocity 1. This is granted by all to be the final result of the collision. Now the instant of time in which this communication happens is no part either of the duration of the solitary motion of A, nor of the joint motion of A and B: it is the separation or boundary between them. It is at once the end of the first and the beginning of the second, belonging equally to both. A was moving with the volocity 2. The distinguishing circumstance, therefore, of its mechanical state is, that it has a determination (however incomprehensible) by which it would move for ever with the velocity 2, if nothing changed it. This it has during the whole of its solitary motion, and therefore in the last instant of this motion. In like manner, during the whole of the joint motion, and therefore in the first instant of this motion, the atom A has a determination by which it would move for ever with the velocity 1. In one and the same instant, therefore, the atom A has two incompatible determinations. Whatever notion we can form of this state, which we call velocity, as a distinction of condition, the same impossibility of conception, or the same absurdity, occurs. Nor can it be avoided in any other way than by saying, that this change of A’s motion is brought about by insensible gradations; that is, that A and B influence each other precisely as they would do if a slender spring were interposed. The reader is desired to look at what we have said in the article Physics.

The two magnets there spoken of are good representatives of two atoms endowed with mutual powers of repulsion; and the communication of motion is accomplished in both cases in precisely the same manner.

If, therefore, we shall ever be so fortunate as to discover the law of variation of that force which connects one atom of matter with another atom, and which is therefore characteristic of matter, and the ultimate source of all its sensible qualities, the curve whose ordinates represent the kind and the intensity of this atomical force will be something like that sketched in fig. 2. The first branch a n B will have

AK (perpendicular to the axis AH) for its assymptote. and the last branch lino will be to all sense a hyperbola, having AO for its assymptote; and the ordinates l L, m M, &c. will be proportional to -ry—, L; , &c. expressing the universal

ALz ΑΛΙ*

gravitation of matter. It will have many branches B b C, D d E, F f G, &c. expressing attractions, and alternate repulsive branches C c D, E e F, G g H, &c. All these will be contained within a distance AH, which does not exceed a very minute fraction of an inch.

The simplest particle which can be a constituent of a body having length, breadth, and thickness, must consist of four such atoms, all of which combine their influence on each atom of another such particle. It is evident that the curve which expresses the force that connects two such particles must be totally different from this original curve, this hylarchic principle. Supposing the last known, our mathematical knowledge is quite able to discover the first; but when we proceed to conquise a body of particles, each of[7:20:755] which consiste of four such particles, we may venture to say that the compound force which connects them is almost beyond our search, and that the discovery of the primary force from an accurate knowledge of the corpuscular forces of this particular matter is absolutely out of our power.

All that we can learn is, the possibility, nay, the certainty, of an innumerable variety of external sensible forms and qualities, by which different kinds of matter will be distinguished, arising from the number, the order of composition, and the arrangement of the subordinate particles of which a particle of this or that kind of matter is composed. All these varieties will take place at those small and insensible distances which are between A and H, and may produce all that variety which we observe in the tangible or mechanical forms of bodies, such as elasticity, ductility, hardness, softness, fluidity, vapour, and all those unseen motions or actions which we observe in fusion and congelation, evaporation and condensation, solution and precipitation, crystallization, vegetable and animal assimilation and secretion, &c.; while all bodies must be, in a certain degree, elastic, all must gravitate, and all must be incompenetrable.

This general and satisfactory resemblance between the appearance of tangible matter and the legitimate consequence of this general hypothetical property of an atom of matter, affords a considerable probability that such is the origin of all the phenomena. We earnestly recommend to our readers a careful perusal of Boscovich’s celebrated treatise. A careful perusal is necessary for seeing its value; and nothing will be got by a hasty inspection. The rentier will be particularly pleased with the facility and evidence with which the ingenious author has deduced all the ordinary principles of mechanics, and with the explanation which he has given of fluidity, and his deduction from thence of the laws of hydrostatics. No part of the treatise is more valuable than the doctrine of the propagation of pressure through solid bodies. This, however, is but just touched on in the course of the investigation of the principles of mechanics. We shall borrow as much as will suffice for our present inquiry into the strength of materials; and we trust that our readers are not displeased with this general sketch of the doctrine (if it may be so called) of the cohesion of bodies. It is curious and important in itself, and is the foundation of all the knowledge which we can acquire of the present article. We are sorry to say that it is as yet a new subject of study; but it is a very promising one, and we by no means despair of seeing the whole of chemistry brought by its means within the pale of mechanical science. The great and distinguishing agent in chemistry is beat, or fire the cause of heat; and one of its most singular effects is the conversion of bodies into elastic vapour. We have the clearest evidence that this is brought about by mechanical forces; for it can be opposed or prevented by external pressure, a very familiar mechanical force. We may perhaps find another mechanical force which will prevent fusion.

Having now made our readers familiar with the mode of action in which cohesion operates in giving strength to solid bodies, we proceed to consider the strains to which this strength is opposed.

A piece of solid matter is exposed to four kinds of strains, different in the manner of their operation.

1. It may be torn asunder, as in the case of ropes, stretchers, king-posts, tie-beams, &c.

2. It may be crushed, as in the case of pillars, posts, and truss-beams.

3. It may be broken across, as happens to a joist or lever of any kind.

4. It may be wrenched or twisted, as in the case of the axle of a wheel, the nail of a press, &c.

I. IT MAY BE PULLED ASUNDER.

This is the simplest of all strains, and the others are indeed modifications of it. To this the force of cohesion is directly opposed, with very little modification of its action by any particular circumstances.

When a long cylindrical or prismatic body, such as a rod of wood or metal, or a rope, is drawn by one end, it must be resisted at the other, in order to bring its cohesion into action. When it is fastened at one end, we cannot conceive it any other way than as equally stretched in all its parts; for all our observations and experiments on natural bodies concur in showing us that the forces which connect their particles in any way whatever are equal and opposite. This is called the third law of motion; and we admit its universality, while we affirm that it is purely experimental. Yet we have met with dissertations by persons of eminent knowledge, where propositions are maintained inconsistent with this. During the dispute about the communication of motion, some of the ablest writers have said, that a spring compressed or stretched at the two ends was gradually less and less compressed or stretched from the extremities towards the middle: but the same writers acknowledged the universal equality of action and re-action, which is quite incompatible with this state of the spring. No such inequality of compression or dilatation has ever been observed; and a little reflection will show it to be impossible, in consistency with the equality of action and re-action.

Since all parts are thus equally stretched, it follows that the strain in any transverse section is the same, as also in every point of that section. If therefore the body be supposed of a homogeneous texture, the cohesion of the parts is equable; and since every part is equally stretched, the particles are drawn to equal distances from their quiescent positions, and the forces which are thus excited, and now exerted in opposition to the straining force, are equal. This external force may be increased by degrees, which will gradually separate the parts of the body more and more from each other, and the connecting forces increase with this increase of distance, till at last the cohesion of some particles is overcome. This must be immediately followed by a rupture, because the remaining forces are now weaker than before.

It is the united force of cohesion, immediately before the disunion of the first particles, that we call the strength of the section. It may also be properly called its absolute strength, being exerted in the simplest form, and not modified by any relation to other circumstances.

If the external force have not produced any permanent change on the body, and it therefore recovers its former dimensions when the force is withdrawn, it is plain that this strain may be repeated as often as we please, and the body which withstands it once will always withstand it. It is evident that this should be attended to in all constructions, and that in all our investigations on this subject this should be kept strictly in view. When we treat a piece of soft clay in this manner, and with this precaution, the force employed must be very small. If we exceed this, we produce a permanent change. The rod of clay is not indeed torn asunder, but it has become somewhat more slender; the number of particles in a cross section is now smaller; and therefore, although it will again, in this new form, suffer or allow an endless repetition of a certain strain without any farther permanent change, this strain is smaller than the former.

Something of the same kind happens in all bodies which receive a set by the strain to which they are exposed. All ductile bodies are of this kind. But there are many bodies which are not ductile. Such bodies break completely whenever they are stretched beyond the limit of their perfect elasticity. Bodies of a fibrous structure exhibit very great[7:20:756] varieties in their cohesion. In some the fibres have no lateral cohesion, as in the case of a rope. The only way in which all the fibres can be made to unite their strength, is to twist them together. This causes them to bind each other so fast, that any one of them will break before it can be drawn out of the bundle. In other fibrous bodies, such as timber, the fibres are held together by some cement or gluten. This is seldom as strong as the fibre. Accordingly timber is much easier pulled asunder in a direction transverse to the fibres. There is, however, every possible variety in this particular.

In stretching and breaking fibrous bodies, the visible extension is frequently very considerable. This is not solely the increasing of the distance of the particles of the cohering fibre; the greatest part chiefly arises from drawing the crooked fibre straight. In this, too, there is great diversity; and it is accompanied with important differences in their power of withstanding a strain. In some woods, such as fir, the fibres on which the strength most depends are very straight. Such woods are commonly very elastic, do not take a set, and break abruptly when overstrained: others, such as oak and birch, have their resisting fibres very undulating and crooked, and stretch very sensibly by a strain. They are very liable to take a set, and they do not break so suddenly, but give warning by complaining, as the carpenters call it; that is, by giving visible signs of a derangement of texture. Hard bodies of an uniform glassy structure, or granulated like stones, are elastic through the whole extent of their cohesion, and take no set, but break at once when overloaded.

Notwithstanding the immense variety which nature exhibits in the structure and cohesion of bodies, there are certain general facts of which we may now avail ourselves with advantage. In particular,

The absolute cohesion is proportional to the area of the section. This must be the case where the texture is perfectly uniform, as we have reason to think it is in glass and the ductile metals. The cohesion of each particle being alike, the whole cohesion must be proportional to their number, that is, to the area of the section. The same must be admitted with respect to bodies of a granulated texture, where the granulation is regular and uniform. The same must be admitted of fibrous bodies, if we suppose their fibres equally strong, equally dense, and similarly disposed through the whole section; and this we must either suppose, or must state the diversity, and measure the cohesion accordingly.

We may therefore assert, as a general proposition on this subject, that the absolute strength in any part of a body, by which it resists being pulled asunder, or the force which must be employed to tear it asunder in that part, is proportional to the area of the section perpendicular to the extending force.

Therefore all cylindrical or prismatical rods are equally strong in every part, and will break alike in any part; and bodies which have unequal sections will always break in the slenderest part. The length of the cylinder or prism has no effect on the strength. Also the absolute strengths of bodies which have similar sections are proportional to the squares of their diameters or homologous sides of the section.

The weight of the body itself may be employed to strain it and to break it. It is evident, that a rope may be so long as to break by its own weight. When the rope is hanging perpendicularly, although it is equally strong in every part, it will break towards the upper end, because the strain on any part is the weight of all that is below it. Its relative strength in any part, or power of withstanding the strain which is actually laid on it, is inversely as the quantity below that part.

When the rope is stretched horizontally, as in towing a ship, the strain arising from its weight often bears a very sensible proportion to its whole strength.

These are the chief general rules which can be safely deduced from our clearest notions of the cohesion of bodies. In order to make any practical use of them, it is proper to have some measures of the cohesion of such bodies as are commonly employed in our mechanics, and other structures where they are exposed to this kind of strain. These must be deduced solely from experiment; therefore they must be considered as no more than general values, or as the averages of many particular trials. The irregularities are very great, because none of the substances are constant in their texture and firmness. Metals differ by a thousand circumstances unknown to us, according to their purity, to the heat with which they were melted, to the moulds in which they were cast, and the treatment they have afterwards received, by forging, wire-drawing, tempering, &c.

It is a very curious and inexplicable fact, that by forging a metal, or by frequently drawing it through a smooth hole in a steel plate, its cohesion is greatly increased. This operation undoubtedly deranges the natural situation of the particles. They are squeezed closer together in one direction, but it is not in the direction in which they resist the fracture. In this direction they arc rather separated to a greater distance. The general density, however, is augmented in all of them except lead, which grows rather rarer by wire-drawing; but its cohesion may be more than tripled by this operation. Gold, silver, and brass, have their cohesion nearly tripled; copper and iron have it more than doubled. In this operation they also grow much harder. It is proper to heat them to redness after drawing a little. This is called nealing or annealing. It softens the metal again, and renders it susceptible of another drawing without the risk of cracking in the operation.

We do not pretend to give any explanation of this re-markuble and very important fact, which has something resembling it in woods and other fibrous bodies, as will be mentioned afterwards.

The varieties in the cohesion of stones and other minerals, and of vegetable and animal substances, are hardly susceptible of any description or classification.

We shall take for the measure of cohesion the number of pounds avoirdupois which are just sufficient to tear asunder a rod or bundle of one inch square. From this it will be easy to compute the strength corresponding to any other dimension.

1st, Metals. lbs.

Gold, cast } 20,000 24, 000

Silver, cast } 40,000, 43,000

Copper, cast, { Japan 19,000

Barbary 22,000

Hungary 31,000

Anglesea. 34,000

Sweden 37,000

Iron, cast } 42,000, 59,000

Iron, bar } Ordinary 68,000

Stirian 75,000

Best Swedish and Russian 84,000

Horse-nails 71,000^[1. This was an experiment by Muschenbroeck, to examine the vulgar notion that iron forged from old horse-nails was stronger than all others, and shows its falsity. ] l
[7:20:757]
[table]

It is very remarkable, that almost all the mixtures of metals are more tenacious than the metals themselves. The change of tenacity depends much on the proportion of the ingredients, and the proportion which produces the most tenacious mixture is different in the different metals. We have selected the following from the experiments of Muschenbroeck. The proportion of ingredients here selected is that which produces the greatest strength.

Two parts of gold with one of silver 28,000

Five parts of gold with one of copper .50,000

Five parts of silver with one of copper 48,500

Four parts of silver with one of tin 41,000

Six parts of copper with one of tin 41,000

Five parts of Japan copper with one of Banca tin...57,000 Six parts of Chili copper with one of Malacca tin...60,000 Six parts of Swedish copper with one of Malacca tin 64,000 Brass consists of copper and zinc in an unknown pro portion; its strength is 51,000

Three parts of block-tin with one part of lead 10,200

Eight parts of block-tin with one part of zinc 10,000

Four parts of Malacca tin with one part of regulus of antimony 12,000

Eight parts of lead with one of zinc 4,500

Four parts of tin with one of lead and one of zinc... 13,000

These numbers are of considerable use in the arts. The mixtures of copper and tin are particularly interesting in the fabric of great guns. We see that, by mixing copper, whose greatest strength does not exceed 37,000, with tin, which does not exceed 6000, we produce a metal whose tenacity is almost double, at the same time that it is harder and more easily wrought. It is, however, more fusible, which is a great inconvenience. We also see that a very small addition of zinc almost doubles the tenacity of tin, and increases the tenacity of lead five times; and a small addition of lead doubles the tenacity of tin. These are economical mixtures. This is very valuable information to the plumbers, for augmenting the strength of water-pipes.

By having recourse to these tables, the engineer can proportion the thickness of his pipes, of whatever metal, to the pressures to which they are exposed.

2 d, Woods.

We may premise to this part of the table the following general observations.

1. The wood immediately surrounding the pith or heart of the tree is the weakest, and its inferiority is so much more remarkable as the tree is older. In this assertion, however, we speak with some hesitation. Muschenbroeck’s detail of experiments is decidedly in the affirmative. Μ. Buffon, on the other hand, says that his experience has taught him that the heart of a sound tree is the strongest; but he gives no instances. From many observations of our own on very large oaks and firs, we are certain that the heart is much weaker than the exterior parts.

2. The wood next the bark, commonly called the white or blea, is also weaker than the rest; and the wood gradually increases in strength as we recede from the centre to the blea.

3. The wood is stronger in the middle of the trunk than at the springing of the branches or at the root; and the wood of the branches is weaker than that of the trunk.

4. The wood of the north side of all trees which grow in our European climates is the weakest, and that of the southeast side is the strongest; and the difference is most remarkable in hedge-row trees, and such as grow singly. The heart of a tree is never in its centre, but always nearer to the north side, and the annual coats of wood are thinner on that side. In conformity with this, it is a general opinion of carpenters that timber is stronger whose annual plates are thicker. The trachea or air-vessels are weaker than the simple ligneous fibres. The air-vessels are the same in diameter and number of rows in trees of the same species, and they make the visible separation between the annual plates. Therefore, when these are thicker, they contain a greater proportion of the simple ligneous fibres.

5. All woods are more tenacious while green, and lose very considerably by drying after the trees are felled.

The only author who has put it in our power to judge of the propriety of his experiments is Muschenbroeck. He has described his method of trial minutely, and it seems unexceptionable. The woods were all formed into slips fit for his apparatus, and part of the slip was cut away to a parallelopiped of 1 / 5 th of an inch square, and therefore 1 / 5 th of a square inch in section. The absolute strengths of a square inch were as follow:
[table]

Muschenbroeck has given a very minute detail of the experiments on the ash and the walnut, stating the weights which were required to tear asunder slips taken from the four sides of the tree, and on each side, in a regular progression from the centre to the circumference. The number of this table corresponding to these two timbers may therefore be considered as the average of more than fifty trials made of each; and he says that all the others were made with the same care. We cannot therefore see any reason for not confiding in the results; yet they are considerably higher than those given by some other writers. Mr Pitot, on the authority of his own experiments, and of those of Mr Parent, avers that sixty pounds will just tear asunder a square line of sound oak, and that it will bear fifty with safety. This gives 8640 for the utmost strength of a square inch, which is much inferior to Muschenbroeck’s valuation.

We may add to these,

Ivory 16,270

Bone 5,250

Hom 8,750

Whalebone 7,500

Tooth of sea-calf. 4,075

The reader will surely observe, that these numbers express something more than the utmost cohesion; for the weights are such as will very quickly, that is, in a minute or two, tear the rods asunder. It may be said in general, that two thirds of these weights will sensibly impair the strength after a considerable while, and that one half is the utmost that can remain suspended at them without risk for ever; and it is upon this last allotment that the engineer should reckon in his constructions. There is, however, considerable difference in this respect. Woods of a very straight[7:20:758] fibre, such as fir, will be less impaired by any load which is not sufficient to break them immediately.

According to Mr Emerson, the load which may be safely suspended to an inch square is as follows:

Iron 76,400

Brass 35,600

Hempen rope 19,600

Ivory ...15,700

Oak, box, yew, plum-tree 7,850

Elm, ash, beech, 6,070

Walnut, plum 5,360

Red fir, holly, elder, plane, crab 5,000

Cherry, hazel 4,760

Alder, asp, birch, willow 4,290

Lead 430

Freestone 914

He gives us a practical rule, that a cylinder whose diameter is d inches, loaded to one fourth of its absolute strength, will carry as follows:

Iron 135

Good rope 22

Oak..... 14

Fir 9 } cwt.

The rank which the different woods hold in this list of Mr Emerson’s is very different from what we find in Muschenbroeck’s. But precise measures must not be expected in this matter. It is wonderful, that in a matter of such unquestionable importance the public has not enabled some persons of judgment to make proper trials. They are beyond the abilities of private persons.

II.—BODIES MAY BE CRUSHED.

It is of equal, perhaps greater, importance to know the strain which may be laid on solid bodies without danger of crushing them. Pillars and posts of all kinds are exposed to this strain in its simplest form; and there are cases where the strain is enormous, viz. where it arises from the oblique position of the parts, as in the struts, braces, and trusses, which occur very frequently in our great works. It is therefore most desirable to have some general knowledge of the principle which determines the strength of bodies, in opposition to this kind of strain. But, unfortunately, we are much more at a loss in this than in the last case. The mechanism of nature is, in the present case, much more complicated. It must be in some circuitous way that compression can have any tendency to tear asunder the parts of a solid body, and it is very difficult to trace the steps.

If we suppose the particles insuperably hard and in contact, and disposed in lines which are in the direction of the external pressures, it does not appear how any pressure can disunite the particles; but this is a gratuitous supposition. There are infinite odds against this precise arrangement of the lines of particles; and the compressibility of all kinds of matter in some degree shows that the particles are in a situation equivalent to distance. This being the case, and the particles, with their intervals, or what is equivalent to intervals, being in situations that are oblique with respect to the pressures, it must follow, that by squeezing them together in one direction, they are made to bulge out or separate in other directions. This may proceed so far that some may be thus pushed laterally beyond their limits of cohesion. The moment that this happens the resistance to compression is diminished, and the body will now be crushed together. We may form some notion of this by supposing a number of spherules, like small shot, sticking together by means of a cement. Compressing this in some particular direction causes the spherules to act among each other like so many wedges, each tending to penetrate through between the three which lie below it: and this is the simplest, and perhaps the only distinct, notion we can have of the matter. We have reason to think that the constitution of very homogeneous bodies, such as glass, is not very different from this.

If this be the constitution of bodies, it appears probable that the strength, or the resistance which they are capable of making to an attempt to crush them to pieces, is proportional to the area of the section whose plane is perpendicular to the external force; for each particle being similarly and equally acted on and resisted, the whole resistance must be as their number, that is, as the extent of the section.

Accordingly this principle is assumed by the few writers who have considered the subject; but we confess that it appears to us very doubtful. Suppose a number of brittle or friable balls lying on a table uniformly arranged, but not cohering nor in contact, and that a board is laid over them and loaded with a weight; we have no hesitation in saying that the weight necessary to crush the whole collection is proportional to their number or to the area of the section. But when they are in contact, and still more if they cohere, we imagine that the case is materially altered. Any individual ball is crushed only in consequence of its being bulged outwards in the direction perpendicular to the pressure employed. If this could be prevented by a hoop put round the ball like an equator, we cannot see how any force can crush it. Any thing therefore which makes this bulging outwards more difficult, makes a greater force necessary. Now this effect will be produced by the mere contact of the balls before the pressure is applied; for the central ball cannot swell outward laterally without pushing away the balls on all sides of it. This is prevented by the friction on the table and upper board, which is at least equal to one third of the pressure. Thus any interior ball becomes stronger by the mere vicinity of the others; and if we further suppose them to cohere laterally, we think that its strength will be still more increased.

The analogy between these balls and the cohering particles of a friable body is very perfect. We should therefore expect that the strength by which it resists being crushed will increase in a greater ratio than that of the section, or the square of the diameter of similar sections; and that a square inch of any matter will bear a greater weight in proportion as it makes a part of a greater section. Accordingly this appears in many experiments, as will afterwards be noticed. Muschenbroeck, Euler, and some others, have supposed the strength of columns to be as the biquadrates of their diameters. Euler deduced this from formulae which occurred to him in the course of his algebraic analysis; and he boldly adopts it as a principle, without looking tor its foundation in the physical assumptions which he had made in the beginning of his investigation. But some of his original assumptions were as paradoxical, or at least as gratuitous, as these results; and those, in particular, from which this proportion of the strength of columns “as deduced, were almost foreign to the case; and therefore the inference was of no value. Yet it was received as a principle by Muschenbroeck and by the academicians of St Petersburg. We make these very few observations, because the subject is of great practical importance; and it is a great obstacle to improvements when deference to a great name, joined to incapacity or indolence, causes authors to adopt his careless reveries as principles from which they are afterwards to draw important consequences. It must be acknowledged that we have not as yet established, on solid mechanical principles, the relation between the dimensions and the strength of a pillar. Experience plainly contradicts the general opinion, that the strength is proportional to the area of the section; but it is still more inconsistent with the opinion, that it is in the quadruplicate ratio of the diameters of similar sections. It would seem that the ratio depends much on the internal structure of the body; and experiment seems the only method for ascertaining its general laws.[7:20:759] If we suppose the body to be of a fibrous texture, having the fibres situated in the direction of the pressure, and slightly adhering to each other by some kind of cement, such a body will fail only by the bending of the fibres, by which they will break the cement and be detached from each other. Something like this may be supposed in wooden pillars. In such cases, too, it would appear that the resistance must be as the number of equally resisting fibres, and as their mutual support, jointly; and, therefore, as some function of the area of the section. The same thing must happen if the fibres be naturally crooked or undulated, as is observed in many woods, provided we suppose some similarity in their form. Similarity of some kind must always be supposed, otherwise we need never aim at any general inferences.

In all cases therefore we can hardly refuse admitting that the strength in opposition to compression is proportional to a function of the area of the section.

As the whole length of a cylinder or prism is equally pressed, it does not appear that the strength of a pillar is at all affected by its length. If indeed it be supposed to bend under the pressure, the case is greatly changed, because it is then exposed to a transverse strain; and this increases with the length of the pillar. But this will be considered with due attention under the next class of strains.

Few experiments have been made on this species of strength and strain. Mr Pitot says that his experiments and those of Mr Parent show that the force necessary for crushing a body is nearly equal to that which will tear it asunder. He says that it requires something more than sixty pounds on every square line to crush a piece of sound oak. But the rule is by no means general: glass, for instance, will carry a hundred times as much as oak in this way, that is, resting on it; but will not suspend four or five times as much. Oak will suspend a great deal more than fir; but fir, as a pillar, will carry twice as much. Woods of a soft texture, although consisting of very tenacious fibres, are more easily crushed by their load. This soilness of texture is chiefly owing to their fibres not being straight but undulated, and there being considerable vacuities between them, so that they are easily bent laterally and crushed. When a post is overstrained by its load, it is observed to swell sensibly in diameter. Increasing the load causes longitudinal cracks or shivers to appear, and it presently after gives way. This is called crippling.

In all cases where the fibres lie oblique to the strain, the strength is greatly diminished, because the parts can then be made to slide on each other when the cohesion of the cementing matter is overcome.

Muschenbroeck has given some experiments on this subject; but they are cases of long pillars, and therefore do not belong to this place. They will be considered afterwards.

The only experiments of which we have seen any detail (and it is useless to insert mere assertions) are those of Mr Gauthey, in the fourth volume of Rozier’s Journal de Physique. This engineer exposed to great pressures small rectangular parallelopipeds, cut from a great variety of stones, and noted the weights which crushed them. The following table exhibits the medium results of many trials on two very uniform kinds of freestone, one of them among the hardest and the other among the softest used in building.

Column first expresses the length AB of the section, in French lines or 12ths of an inch; column second expresses the breadth BC; column third is the area of the section, in square lines; column fourth is the number of ounces required to crush the piece; column fifth is the weight which was then borne by each square line of the section; and column sixth is the round numbers to which Mr Gauthey imagines that those in column fifth approximate.
[table]

Little can be deduced from these experiments: the first and third, compared with the fifth and sixth, should furnish similar results; for the first and fifth are respectively half of the third and sixth; but the third is three times stronger (that is, a line of the third) than the first, whereas the sixth is only twice as strong as the fifth.

It is evident, however, that the strength increases much faster than the area of the section, and that a square line can carry more and more weight, according as it makes a part of a larger and larger section. In this series of experiments on the soft stone, the individual strength of a square line seems to increase nearly in the proportion of the section of which it makes a part.

Mr Gauthey deduces, from the whole of his numerous experiments, that a pillar of hard stone of Givry, whose section is a square foot, will bear with perfect safety 664,000 pounds, and that its extreme strength is 871,000; and the smallest strength observed in any of his experiments was 460,000. The soft bed of Givry stone had for its smallest strength 187,000, for its greatest 311,000, and for its safe load 249,000. Good brick will carry with safety 320,000; chalk will carry only 9000. The boldest piece of architecture in this respect which he has seen is a pillar in the church of All-Saints at Angers. It is twenty-four feet long and eleven inches square, and is loaded with 60,000, which is not one seventh of what is necessary for crushing it.

We may observe here by the way, that Mr Gauthey’s measure of the suspending strength of stone is vastly small in proportion to its power of supporting a load laid above it. He finds that a prism of the hard bed of Givry, of a foot section, is torn asunder by 4600 pounds; and if it be firmly fixed horizontally in a wall, it will be broken by a weight of 56,000 suspended a foot from the wall. If it rest on two props at a foot distance, it will be broken by 206,000 laid on its middle. These experiments agree so ill with each other, that little use can be made of them. The subject is of great importance, and well deserves the attention of the patriotic philosopher.

A set of good experiments would be very valuable, because it is against this kind of strain that we must guard by judicious construction in the most delicate and difficult problems which come through the hands of the civil and military engineer. The construction of stone arches, and the construction of great wooden bridges, and particularly the construction of the frames of carpentry called centres in the erection of stone bridges, are the most difficult jobs that occur. In the centres on which the arches of the bridge of Orleans were built, some of the pieces of oak were carrying upwards of two tons on every square inch of their scantling. All who saw it said that it was not able to carry the fourth part of the intended load. But the engineer understood the principles of his art, and ran the risk, and the result completely justified his confidence; for the centre did not complain in any part, only it was found too supple; so that it went out of shape while the haunches only of the arch were laid on it. The engineer corrected this by loading it at the crown, and thus kept it completely in shape during the progress of the work.

In the Memoirs of the Academy of St Petersburg for[7:20:760] 1778, there is a dissertation by Euler on this subject, but particularly limited to the strain on columns, in which the bending is taken into the account. Mr Fuss has treated the same subject with relation to carpentry in a subsequent volume. But there is little in these papers besides a dry mathematical disquisition, proceeding on assumptions which (to speak favourably) are extremely gratuitous. The most important consequence of the compression is wholly overlooked, as we shall presently see. Our knowledge of the mechanism of cohesion is as yet far too imperfect to entitle us to a confident application of mathematics. Experiments should be multiplied.

The only way in which we can hope to make these experiments useful, is to pay a careful attention to the manner in which the fracture is produced. By discovering the general resemblances in this particular, we advance a step in our power of introducing mathematical measurement. Thus, when a cubical piece of chalk is slowly crushed between the chaps of a vice, we see it uniformly split in a surface oblique to the pressure, and the two parts then slide along the surface of fracture. This should lead us to examine mathematically what relation there is between this surface of fracture and the necessary force; then we should endeavour to determine experimentally the position of this surface. Having discovered some general law or resemblance in this circumstance, we should try what mathematical hypothesis will agree with this. Having found one, we may then apply our simplest notions of cohesion, and compare the result of our computations with experiment.

III. A BODY MAY BE BROKEN ACROSS.

The most usual, and the greatest strain, to which materials are exposed, is that which tends to break them transversely. It is seldom, however, that this is done in a manner perfectly simple; for when a beam projects horizontally from a wall, and a weight is suspended from its extremity, the beam is commonly broken near the wall, and the intermediate part has performed the functions of a lever. It sometimes, though rarely, happens that the pin in the joint of a pair of pincers or scissors is cut through by the strain; and this is almost the only case of a simple transverse fracture. Being so rare, we may content ourselves with saying, that in this case the strength of the piece is proportional to the area of the section.

Experiments were made for discovering the resistances made by bodies to this kind of strain in the following manner. Two iron bars were disposed horizontally at an inch distance; a third hung perpendicularly between them, being supported by a pin made of the substance to be examined. This pin was made of a prismatic form, so as to fit exactly the holes in the three bars, which were made very exact, and of the same size and shape. A scale was suspended at the lower end of the perpendicular bar, and loaded till it tore out that part of the pin which filled the middle hole. This weight was evidently the measure of the lateral cohesion of two sections. The side-bars were made to grasp the middle bar pretty strongly between them, that there might be no distance interposed between the opposite pressures. This would have combined the energy of a lever with the purely transverse pressure. For the same reason it was necessary that the internal parts of the holes should be no smaller than the edges. Great irregularities occurred in our first experiments from this cause, because the pins were somewhat tighter within than at the edges; but when this was corrected they were extremely regular. We employed three sets of holes, viz. a circle, a squire (which was occasionally made a rectangle whose length was twice its breadth), and an equilateral triangle. We found in alt our experiments the strength exactly proportional to the area of the section, and quite independent of its figure or position, and we found it considerably above the direct cohesion; that is, it took considerably more than twice the force to tear out this middle piece that it did to tear the pin asunder by a direct pull. A piece of fine freestone required 205 pounds to pull it directly asunder, and 575 to break it in this way. The difference was very constant in any one substance, but varied from four thirds to six thirds in different kinds of matter, being smallest in bodies of a fibrous texture. But indeed we could not make the trial on any bodies of considerable cohesion, because they required such forces as our apparatus could not support. Chalk, clay baked in the sun, baked sugar, brick, and freestone, were the strongest that we could examine.

But the more common case, where the energy of a lever intervenes, demands a minute examination. (b. b. b.)

Let ABCD (fig. 3) be the longitudinal section of a beam inserted into a wall at the end AD, and supporting a weight at the free end BC: it is required to find what tendency the weight will have to break the beam over at the section EF.

The weight at C will, in the first place, cause a tendency of the part EBCF to slide down on the surface EF, but the strength of the beam in resisting this kind of dislocation is much greater than its power of resisting common fracture: it is therefore unnecessary to examine this case.

The weight at C will cause the beam to bend; that is, it will distend the upper and compress the under part of the beam, and, acting at the extremity of the lever FC, its power of causing such compression and distention will be W× FC. Since the weight at C acts in a vertical direction, it cannot tend either to lengthen or to shorten the beam, and thus the repulsion of the compressed part must be exactly equal to the attraction of the distended parts.

Let G be the neutral point, and draw through it the line fGe, contiguous to FGE; draw also H h and I i parallel to CD. The lines It, in the under side of the cross section, will represent the degrees of compression, and also (since within the limits of security the repulsion is proportional to the degree of compression) the force of repulsion, while the lines H h on the upper side will serve to represent the attractions. The sum of all the lines on the upper side, that is, the wedge EG c , will thus represent the entire amount of attraction, while the wedge FG f will represent the total amount of repulsion. These two wedges, then, must be equal to each other; and this equality determines the position of the Axis of flexure represented by the point G. In the case of a rectangular beam, G must clearly be in the middle of the line EF; but when the cross section of the beam is irregular, the position of the axis of flexure is not quite so easily found.

Let EF be the cross section of an irregular beam, and OH the axis of flexure, or the place where the beam is neither compressed nor distended. Then the wedges generated by turning the section EF upon OH as an axis must be equal to each other. This is always the case when OH passes through the centre of gravity of the cross section, and thus it follows that those points which are neither compressed nor distended are always ranged in a straight line drawn through the centre of gravity of the cross section.[7:20:761] The position of the fulcrum of the lever being now known, we can proceed to ascertain the effects of the various forces.

Returning, for the sake of simplicity, to the rectangular beam; the sum of the repulsions i I will be represented by the triangle G f F: but the rectangle under GF and Ff would measure the entire strength of the under half of the beam, and therefore the force actually exerted when the beam is about to be broken across, is just half of the absolute strength of the beam; one quarter being exhibited as attraction, another quarter as repulsion. These forces act at different distances from the fulcrum G, and it is well known that the influence of a number of weights in turning a lever round is the same as if all these weights were to act at their common centre of gravity; so that to find the entire action in this case, we have to suppose one fourth of the whole strength of the beam to act at the distance 2 / 3 of GF or 1 / 3 of EF from the fulcrum G, and another quarter of the strength at 2 / 3 of GE. Now, if s be the strength of one square inch of the beam, and if D, B, and L be its depth, breadth, and length, measured in inches, DBs will be the absolute strength of the whole beam; and therefore the tendencies of the above forces to straighten the beam will be ¼DB s × 1 / 3 D +¼DB s × 1 / 5 D; that is, 1 / 6 D 2 ∙ B ∙ s. And again, the tendency of the weight W to bend the beam is W L; so that 1 / 6 D 2 ∙B∙s= WL, or 6L: D:: DBs: W; that is, as six times the length of the beam is to its depth, so is the absolute strength of the beam to the weight which it can carry at the free end.

Throughout this investigation we have supposed that the force needed to extend or compress a fibre is exactly proportional to the quantity of extension or compression. This hypothesis, though not perhaps strictly true, and though it certainly errs when we approach to dislocation or fracture, is yet confirmed by all experiments when the extensions have been kept within the limits of safety: the results of this hypothesis therefore are what must guide us in forming any structure.

It may now be interesting to inquire into the strength of a beam when bent in different directions.

EF being, as before, the cross section of an irregular beam, let that beam he bent in the direction OG, the axis of flexure being OH perpendicular to OG; and let us consider the action of a small portion ds of the surface situated at I. Having drawn the perpendiculars IK and IL, it is clear that the compression of the fibre I must be proportional to KI; and therefore the force exerted by it may be denoted by C ∙ IK ∙ ds, C being some constant depending on the nature of the material and the degree of flexure. This force, conceived to act at the extremity of the lever KI, will tend to bend the beam round the axis OH; but again acting at the end of the lever LI, it will tend to bend the beam on OG as an axis. Putting 2 to denote the integral for the entire surface, C∙Σ·IK 2 ds will be the entire tendency to rectify the form of the beam, and CΣIK ∙ IL∙ ds will be the entire tendency to take a flexure in a plane at right angles to that which it actually has. A beam therefore will not bend in the direction in which the pressure is applied to it unless 2∙IK∙ IL ds = 0. This is a circumstance overlooked in all treatises on flexure; but it is one that must be carefully attended to in practice. It may easily be illustrated thus: Take a thin slip of wood, such perhaps as is used for Venetian blinds, and fix it in a vice so that while its length is horizontal its flat sides may be inclined at a considerable angle. Attach now a weight to the free end, and it will be found that that end does not descend vertically, but that it moves obliquely, the flexure not happening in that direction in which the force is applied. The force necessary to bend the beam in the plane of OG is not a force in that direction, but is the resultant of two forces, Σ IK 2 ∙ ds in the direction OG, and 2 ∙ IK ∙ IL ∙ ds in the direction OH. For the present we shall call ΣIK 2 ds the stiffness in the direction OG, and ∑∙ IL 2 ds of course the stiffness in the direction OH. The sum of these two stiffnesses is manifestly Σ · OI 2 ds , which is a constant quantity, depending not at all upon the directions of OG, OH, but only on the form of the cross section: hence follows the remarkable law, that the sum of the stiffnesses of a beam in two directions perpendicular to each other is constant; and that therefore, whatever may be the form of the beam, its directions of greatest and least stiffness are always perpendicular to each other.

For the purpose of discovering in what directions the greatest and least stiffness lie, let us refer all the points in the cross section to the axes OX and O Y, putting the angle XOG = φ. We have then IK = x cos. φ -∣- y sin. φ, IL =— a: sin. φ. p y cos. p; and thus the tendency of the beam to redress itself in the direction GO is 2∙(x cos. P + y sin. φ ds, while the deflecting tendency in the direction HO is Σ· (* cos. φ -f- y sin. φ) (— x sin. φ + y cos. φ) ds. Regarding φ as the variable quantity, and differentiating the former for the purpose of discovering its maximum, we obtain 2∙(z cos. 0 + y sin. φ) (—x sin. φ + y cos. φ) ds= 0; now it will be observed that this expression is just that for the deflecting tendency, and hence this law, That when a beam is bent in the direction of greatest or of least stiffness, the pressure to be applied is exactly in the direction of the betiding.

The value of φ may easily be found from the above equation; the result is „ 2 S∙ x∣∕ ds tan. 2 ® = ——∙— '—-χ-r-. r Sx‘ds — Syds

The lines. OX and OY will coincide with the directions of greatest and least stiffness when p = 0, or when tan. 2 φ = 0, that is, when Σ ∙ xy ds = 0.

If, then, the directions of greatest and least stiffness be taken for the axes of xy and of y, we shall have 2 ∙ xy ds = 0, 2 x 2 ds = greatest stiffness = A, 2 y 2 ds =∑ least stiffness = B. These being once known, the stiffness in any other direction, as well as the deflecting tendency, can readily be obtained. Putting P and Q respectively for these quantities, we have

P = A cos. φ 2 + B sin. p 2 ,

Q = ½ (B— A ) sin. 2 φ.

The deflecting tendency is thus greatest when φ = 45°, that is, when the actual direction of flexure is equally inclined to the directions of greatest and least stiffness. In this case P 1 = ½ (A+B), Q = ½(B-A).

Galileo, who was the first to investigate the law of transverse strain, conceived the lower edge of the beam to be the fulcrum, and each fibre to be exerting its whole strength; Professor Robison, in the former editions of this work, corrected the supposition in the case of rectangular beams: the above investigation extends it to beams of all forms. (c. E.)

We must now remark, that this correction of the Galilean hypothesis of equal forces was suggested by the bending which is observed in all bodies which are strained transversely. Because they are bent, the fibres on the convex side have been extended. We cannot say in what proportion this obtains in the different fibres. Our most distinct notions of the internal equilibrium between the particles render it highly probable that their extension is proportional to their distance from that fibre which retains its former dimensions. But by whatever law this is regulated, we see plainly that the actions of the stretched fibres must follow the proportions of some function of this distance, and that therefore the relative strength of a beam is in all cases susceptible of mathematical determination.[7:20:762] We also see an intimate connection between the strain and the curvature. This suggested to the celebrated James Bernoulli the problem of the elastic curve, i. e. the curve into which an extensible rigid body will be bent by a transverse strain. His solution in the Acta Eruditorum 1694 and 1695, is a very beautiful specimen of mathematical discussion, and we recommend it to the perusal of the curious reader. He will find it very perspicuously treated in the first volume of his works, published after his death, where the wide steps which he had taken in his investigation are explained so as to be easily comprehended. His nephew, Daniel Bernoulli, has given an elegant abridgement in the Petersburg Memoirs for 1729. The problem is too intricate to be fully discussed in a work like ours, but it is also too intimately connected with our present subject to be entirely omitted. We must content ourselves with showing the leading mechanical properties of this curve, from which the mathematician may deduce all its geometrical properties.

When a bar of uniform depth and breadth, and of a given length, is bent into an arch of a circle, the extension of the outer fibres is proportional to the curvature; for, because the curves formed by the inner and outer sides of the beam are similar, the circumferences are as the radii, and the radius of the inner circle is to the difference of the radii as the length of the inner circumference is to the difference of the circumferences. The difference of the radii is the depth of the beam, the difference of the circumferences is the extension of the outer fibres, and the inner circumference is supposed to be the primitive length of the beam. Now the second and third quantities of the above analogy, viz. the depth and length of the beam, are constant quantities, as is also their product. Therefore the product of the inner radius and the extension of the outer fibre is also a constant quantity, and the whole extension of the outer fibre is inversely as the radius of curvature, or is directly as the curvature of the beam.

The mathematical reader will readily see, that into whatever curve the elastic bar is bent, the whole extension of the outer fibre is equal to the length of a similar curve having the same proportion to the thickness of the beam that the length of the beam has to the radius of curvature.

Now let ADCB (fig. 5) be such a rod of uniform breadth and thickness, firmly fixed in a vertical position, and bent into a curve AEFB by a weight W suspended at B, and of such magnitude that the extremity B has its tangent perpendicular to the action of the weight, or parallel to. the horizon. Suppose, too, that the extensions are proportional to the extending forces. From any two points E and F draw the horizontal ordinates EG, FH. It is evident that the exterior fibres of the sections Ee and F f are stretched by forces which are in the proportion of EG to FH (these being the long arms of the levers, and the equal thicknesses Ee, F f being the short arms). Therefore (by the hypothesis) their extensions are in the same proportion. But because the extensions are proportional to some similar functions of the distance from the axes of fracture E and F, the extension of any fibre in the section Ee is to the contemporaneous extension of the similarly situated fibre in the section Ff, as the extension of the exterior fibre in the section Ee is to the extension of the exterior fibre in the section Ff: therefore the whole extension of Ee is to the whole extension of Ff as EG to FH, and EG is to FH as the curvature in E to the curvature in F.

Here let it be remarked, that this proportionality of the curvature to the extension of the fibres is not limited to the hypothesis of the proportionality of the extensions to the extending forces: it follows from the extension in the different sections being as some similar function of the distance from the axis of fracture; an assumption which cannot be refused.

This, then, is the fundamental property of the elastic curve, from which its equation, or relation between the abscissa and ordinate, may be deduced in the usual forms, and all its other geometrical properties. These are foreign to our purpose; and we shall notice only such properties as have an immediate relation to the strain and strength of the different parts of a flexible body, and which in particular serve to explain some difficulties in the valuable experiments of Buffon on the Strength of Beams.

We observe, in the first place, that the elastic curve cannot be a circle, but is gradually more incurvated as it recedes from the point of application B of the straining forces. At B it has no curvature; and if the bar were extended beyond B there would be no curvature there. In like manner, when a beam is supported at the ends and loaded in the middle, the curvature is greatest in the middle; but at the props, or beyond them, if the beam extend farther, there is no curvature. Therefore, when a beam projecting twenty feet from a wall is bent to a certain curvature at the wall by a weight suspended at the end, and a beam of the same size projecting twenty feet is bent to the very same curvature at the wall by a greater weight at ten feet distance, the figure and the mechanical state of the beam in the vicinity of the wall is different in these two cases though the curvature at the very wall is the same in both. In the first case every part of the beam is incurvated; in the second, all beyond the ten feet is without curvature. In the first experiment the curvature at the distance of five feet from the wall is three fourths of the curvature at the wall; in the second, the curvature at the same place is but one half of that at the wall. This must weaken the long beam in this whole interval of five feet, because the greater curvature is the result of a greater extension of the fibres.

In the next place we may remark, that there is a certain determinate curvature for every beam, which cannot be exceeded without breaking it; for there is a certain separation of two adjoining particles that puts an end to their cohesion. A fibre can therefore be extended only a certain proportion of its length. The ultimate extension of the outer fibres must bear a certain determinate proportion to its length, and this proportion is the same with that of the thickness (or what we have hitherto called the depth) to the radius of ultimate curvature, which is therefore determinate.

A beam of uniform breadth and depth is therefore most incurvated where the strain is greatest, and will break in the most incurvated part. But by changing its form, so as to make the strength of its different sections in the ratio of the strain, it is evident that the curvature may be the same throughout, or may be made to vary according to any law. This is a remark worthy of the attention of the watchmaker. The most delicate problem in practical mechanics is so to taper the balance-spring of a watch that its wide and narrow vibrations may be isochronous. Hooke’s principle ut tensio sic vis is not sufficient when we take the inertia and motion of the spring itself into the account. The figure into which it bends and unbends has also an influence. Our readers will take notice that the artist aims at an accuracy which will not admit an error of 1 / 86400 th and that Harrison and Arnold have actually attained it in several instances. The taper of a spring is at present a nostrum in the hands of each artist, and he is careful not to impart its secret Again, since the depth of the beam is thus proportional to the radius of ultimate curvature, this ultimate or breaking curvature is inversely as the depth. It may be expressed by 1 / d . [7:20:763] When a weight is hung on the end of a prismatic beam, the curvature is nearly as the weight and the length directly, and as the breadth and the cube of the depth inversely; for the strength is = ∕'θy∙ Let us suppose that this produces the ultimate curvature Now let the beam be loaded with a smaller weight w, and let the curvature 0^7" 1

produced be C; we have this analogy,/ '.w~-∙. C, and C = ⅛⅛. It is evident that this is also true of a beam supported at the ends and loaded between the props; and we see how to determine the curvature in its different parts, whether arising from the load, or from its own weight, or from both.

When a beam is thus loaded at the end or middle, the loaded point is pulled down, and the space through which it is drawn may be called the deflection. This may be considered as the subtense of the angle of contact, or as the versed sine of the arch into which the beam is bent, and is therefore as the curvature when the length of the arches is given (the flexure being moderate), and as the square of the length of the arch when the curvature is given. The deflection therefore is as the curvature and as the square of the length of the arch jointly; that is, as × or as

The deflection from the primitive shape is therefore as the bending weight and the cube of the length directly, and as the breadth and cube of the depth inversely.

In beams just ready to break, the curvature is as the depth inversely, and the deflection is as the square of the length divided by the depth; for the ultimate curvature at the breaking part is the same whatever is the length; and in this case the deflection is as the square of the iength.

We have been the more particular in our consideration of this subject, because the resulting theorems afford us the finest methods of examining the laws of corpuscular action, that is, for discovering the variation of the force of cohesion by a change of distance. It is true it is not the atomical law, or hylarchic principle as it may justly be called, which is thus made accessible, but the specific law of the particles of the substance or kind of matter under examination. But even this is a very great point; and coincidences in this respect among the different kinds of matter are of great moment. We may thus learn the nature of the corpuscular action of different substances, and perhaps approach to a discovery of the mechanism of chemical affinities. For that chemical actions are insensible cases of local motion is undeniable, and local motion is the province of mechanical discussion; nay, we see that these hidden changes are produced by mechanical forces in many important cases, for we see them promoted or prevented by means purely mechanical. The conversion of bodies into elastic vapour by heat can at all times be prevented by a sufficient external pressure. A strong solution of Glauber’s salts will congeal in an instant by agitation, giving out its latent heat; and it will remain fluid for ever, and retain its latent heat in a close vessel which it completely fills. Even water will by such treatment freeze in an instant by agitation, or remain fluid for ever by confinement. We know that heat is produced or extricated by friction, that certain compounds of gold or silver with saline matters explode with irresistible violence by the smallest pressure or agitation. Such facts should rouse the mathematical philosopher, and excite him to follow out the conjectures of the illustrious Newton, encouraged by the ingenious attempts of Boscovich; and the proper beginning of this study is to at tend to the laws of attraction and repulsion exerted by the particles of cohering bodies, discoverable by experiments made on their actual extensions and compressions. The experiments of simple extensions and compressions are quite insufficient, because the total stretching of a wire is so small a quantity, that the mistake of the 1000th part of an inch occasions an irregularity which deranges any progression so as to make it useless. But by the bending of bodies a distention of 1 / 100 th of an inch may be easily magnified in the deflection of the spring ten thousand times. We know that the investigation is intricate and difficult, but not beyond the reach of our present mathematical attainments; and it will give very fine opportunities of employing all the address of analysis. In the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th this was a sufficient excitement to the first geniuses of Europe. The cycloid, the catenaria, the elastic curve, the velaria, the caustics, were reckoned an abundant recompense for much study; and James Bernoulli requested, as an honourable monument, that the logarithmic spiral might be inscribed on his tombstone. The reward for the study to which we now presume to incite the mathematicians is the almost unlimited extension of natural science, important in every particular branch. To go no further than our present subject, a great deal of important practical knowledge respecting the strength of bodies is derived from the single observation, that in the moderate extensions which happen before the parts are overstrained, the forces are nearly in the proportion of the extensions or separations of the particles. To return to our subject.

James Bernoulli, in his second dissertation on the elastic curve, calls in question this law, and accommodates his investigation to any hypothesis concerning the relation of the forces and extensions. He relates some experiments of lutestrings where the relation was considerably different. Strings of three feet long, stretched by 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 pounds, were lengthened 9, 17, 23, 27, 30 lines.

But this is a most exceptionable form of the experiment. The strings were twisted, and the mechanism of the extensions is here exceedingly complicated, combined with compressions and with transverse twists, &c. We made experiments on fine slips of the gum caoutchouc, and on the juice of the berries of the white bryony, of which a single grain will draw to a thread of two feet long, and again return into a perfectly round sphere. We measured the diameter of the thread by a microscope with a micrometer, and thus could tell in every state of extension the proportional number of particles in the sections. We found, that through the whole range in which the distance of the particles was changed in the proportion of thirteen to one, the extensions did not sensibly deviate from the proportion of the forces. The same thing was observed in the caoutchouc as long as it perfectly recovered its first dimensions. And it is on the authority of these experiments that we presume to announce this as a law of nature.

Dr Robert Hooke was undoubtedly the first who attended to this subject, and assumed this as a law of nature. Mariotte indeed was the first who expressly used it for determining the strength of beams: this he did about the year 1679, correcting the simple theory of Galileo. Leibnitz, indeed, in his dissertation in the Acta Eruditorum 1684, De Resistentia Solidorum, introduces this consideration, and wishes to be considered as the discoverer; and he is always acknowledged as such by the Bernoullis, and others who adhered to his peculiar doctrines. But Mariotte had published the doctrine in the most express terms long before; and Bulfinger, in the Comment. Petropol. 1729, completely vindicates his claim. But Hooke was unquestionably the discoverer of this law. It made the foundation of his theory of springs, announced to the Royal Society about the year 1661, and read in 1666. On this occasion he mentions[7:20:764] many things on the strength of bodies as quite familiar to his thoughts, which are immediate deductions from this principle; and among these all the facts which John Bernoulli so vauntingly adduces in support of Leibnitz’s finical dogmas about the force of bodies in motion; a doctrine which Hooke might have claimed as his own, had he not perceived its frivolous inanity.

But even with this first correction of Mariotte, the mechanism of transverse strain is not fully nor justly explained. The force acting in the direction BW (fig 3), and bending the body ABCD, not only stretches the fibres on the side opposite to the axis of fracture, but compresses the side CD, which becomes concave by the strain. Indeed it cannot do the one without doing the other; for, in order to stretch the fibres at D, there must be some fulcrum, some support, on which the virtual lever BAD may press, that it may tear asunder the stretched fibres. This fulcrum must sustain both tile pressure arising from the cohesion of the distended fibres, and also the action of the external force, which immediately tends to cause the prominent part of the beam to slide along the section EF.

This is fully verified by experiment. If we attempt to break a long slip of cork, or any such very compressible body, we always observe it to bulge out on the concave side before it cracks on the other side. If it is a body of fibrous or foliated texture, it seldom fails splintering off on the concave side; and in many cases this splintering is very deep, even reaching half way through the piece. In hard and granulated bodies, such as a piece of freestone, chalk, dry clay, sugar, and the like, we generally see a considerable splinter or shiver fly off from the hollow side. If the fracture be slowly made by a force at B gradually augmented, the formation of the splinter is very distinctly seen. It forms a triangular piece, which generally breaks in the middle.

Let us see what consequences result from this state of the case respecting the strength of bodies. Let D∆KC (fig. 6) represent a vertical section of a prism of compressible materials, such as a piece of timber. Suppose it loaded with a weight P hung at its extremity. Suppose it of such a constitution that all the fibres in AD are in a state of dilatation, while those in A∆ are in a state of compression. In the instant of fracture the particles at D and E are withheld by forces DJ, Ee, and the particles at ∆ and E repel, resist, or support, with forces ∆3, Fι.

Some line, such as de A εδ , will limit all these ordinates, which represent the forces actually exerted in the instant of fracture. If the forces be as the extensions and compressions, as we have great reason to believe, deA and Aεδ will be two straight lines.. They will form one straight line dAδ, if the forces which resist a certain dilatation are equal to the forces which resist an equal compression. But this is quite accidental, and is not strictly true in any body. In most bodies which have any considerable firmness, the compressions made by any external force are not so great as the dilatations which the same force would produce; that is, the repulsions which are excited by any supposed degree of compression are greater than the attractions excited by the same degree of dilatation. Hence it will generally follow, that the angle dAD is less than the angle δA∆, and the ordinates Dd, Ee, &c. are less than the corresponding ordinates ∆δ, Eε, &c.

But whatever be the nature of the line dAi, we are certain of this, that the whole area AD d is equal to the whole area A ∆δ ; for as the force at B is gradually increased, and the parts between A and D are more extended, and greater cohesive forces are excited, there is always such a degree of repulsive forces excited in the particles between A and Δ that the one set precisely balances the other. The force at B, acting perpendicularly to AB, has no tendency to push the whole piece closer on the part next the wall, or to pull it away. The sum of the attractive and repulsive forces actually excited must therefore be equal. These sums are represented by the two triangular areas, which are therefore equal.

The greater we suppose the repulsive forces corresponding to any degree of compression, in comparison with the attractive forces corresponding to the same degree of extension, the smaller will A∆ be in comparison of AD. In a piece of cork or sponge, A∆ may chance to be equal to AD, or even to exceed it; but in a piece of marble, A∆ will perhaps be very small in comparison of AD.

Now it is evident that the repulsive forces excited between A and Δ have no share in preventing the fracture. They rather contribute to it, by furnishing a fulcrum to the lever by whose energy the cohesion of the particles in AD is overcome. Hence we see an important consequence of the compressibility of the body. Its power of resisting this transverse strain is diminished by it, and so much the more diminished as the stuff is more compressible.

This is fully verified by some very curious experiments made by Duhamel. He took sixteen bars of willow two feet long and half an inch square, and supporting them by props under the ends, he broke them by weights hung on the middle. He broke four of them by weights of 40, 41, 47, and 52 pounds: the mean is 45. He then cut four of them one third through on the upper side, and filled up the cut with a thin piece of harder wood stuck in pretty tight These were broken by 48, 54, 50, and 52 pounds; the mean of which is 51. He cut other four half through, and they were broken by 47, 49, 50, 46; the mean of which is 48. The remaining four were cut two thirds, and their mean strength was 42.

Another set of his experiments is still more remarkable.

Six battens of willow thirty-six inches long and one and a half square were broken by 525 pounds at a medium.

Six bars were cut one third through, and the cut filled with a wedge of hard wood stuck in with a little force: these broke with 551.

Six bars were cut half through, and the cut was filled in the same manner: they broke with 542.

Six bars were cut three fourths through: these broke with 530.

A batten cut three fourths through, and loaded till nearly broken, was unloaded, and the wedge taken out of the cut. A thicker wedge was put in tight, so as to make the batten straight again by filling up the space left by the compression of the wood: this batten broke with 577 pounds.

From this it is plain that more than two thirds of the thickness (perhaps nearly three fourths) contributed nothing to the strength.

The point A is the centre of fracture in this case; and in order to estimate the strength of the piece, we may sup-[7:20:765] pose that the crooked lever virtually concerned in the strain is DAB. We must find the point I, which is the centre of effort of all the attractive forces, or that point where the full cohesion of AD must be applied, so as to have a momentum equal to the accumulated momenta of all the variable forces. We must in like manner find the centre of effort i of the repulsive or supporting forces exerted by the fibres lying between A and Δ.

It is plain, and the remark is important, that this last centre of effort is the real fulcrum of the lever, although A is the point where there is neither extension nor contraction; for the lever is supported in the same manner as if the repulsions of the whole line A∆ were exerted at that point. Therefore let S represent the surface of fracture from A to D, and f represent the absolute cohesion of a fibre at D in the instant of fracture. We shall have ∕S × I 4- i = pl, or I : I -∣- i =fS: p; that is, the length AB is to the distance between the two centres of effort I and i , as the absolute cohesion of the section between A and D is to the relative strength of the section.

It would be perhaps more accurate to make Al and Ai equal to the distances of A from the horizontal lines passing through the centres of gravity of the triangles of dAD and δA∆. It is only in this construction that the points I and i are the centres of real effort of the accumulated attractions and repulsions. But I and i, determined as we have done, are the points where the full equal actions may be all applied, so as to produce the same momenta. The final results are the same in both cases. The attentive and duly informed reader will see that Mr Bullinger, in a very elaborate dissertation on the strength of beams, in the Comment. Petropolitan. 1729, has committed several mistakes in his estimation of the actions of the fibres. We mention this because his reasonings are quoted and appealed to as authorities by Muschenbroeck and other authors of note. The subject has been considered by many authors on the continent. We recommend to the reader’s perusal the very minute discussions in the Memoirs of the Academy of Paris for 1702 by Varignon, the Memoirs for 1708 by Parent, and particularly that of Coulomb in the Mém. par les Sçavans Etrangers, tom. vii.

It is evident from what has been said above, that if S and s represent the surfaces of the sections above and below A, and if G and g are the distances of their centres of gravity from A, and O and o the distances of their centres of oscillation, and D and d their whole depths, the momentum of cohesion will be— 0 - —pl.

1J d t

If, as is most likely, the forces are proportional to the extensions and compressions, the distances AI and At, (τ * O

which are respectively = —θ-and 9 ~, are respectively = 1 / 3 DA and 1 / 3 ∆A, and when taken together are = 1 / 3 D∆. If, moreover, the extensions are equal to the compressions in the instant of fracture, and the body is a rectangular prism like a common joist or beam, then DA and ∆A are also equal; and therefore the momentum of cohesion is f b × 1 / 2 d × 1 / 3 d = f b d × 1 / 6 d - pl. Hence we obtain this analogy: “six times the length is to the depth as the absolute cohesion of the section is to its relative strength.”

Thus we see that the compressibility of bodies has a very great influence on their power of withstanding a transverse strain. We see that in this most favourable supposition of equal dilatations and compressions, the strength is reduced to one half of the value of what it would have been had the body been incompressible. This is by no means obvious; for it does not readily appear how compressibi lity, which does not diminish the cohesion of a single fibre, should impair the strength of the whole. The reason, however, is sufficiently convincing when pointed out. In the instant of fracture, a smaller portion of the section is actually exerting cohesive forces, while a part of it is only serving as a fulcrum to the lever by whose means the strain on the section is produced. We see, too, that this diminution of strength does not so much depend on the sensible compressibility, as on its proportion to the dilatability by equal forces. When this proportion is small, A∆ is small in comparison of AD. and a greater portion of the whole fibre is exerting attractive forces. The experiments already mentioned, of Duhamel de Monceau, on battens of willow, show that its compressibility is nearly equal to its dilatability. But the case is not very different in tempered steel. The famous Harrison, in the delicate experiments which he made while occupied in making his longitude watch, discovered that a rod of tempered steel was nearly as much diminished in its length as it was augmented by the same external force. But it is not by any means certain that this is the proportion of dilatation and compression which obtains in the very instant of fracture. We rather imagine that it is not. The forces arc nearly as the dilatations till very near breaking; but we think that they diminish when the body is just going to break. But it seems certain that the forces which resist compression increase faster than the compressions, even before fracture. We know incontestably that the ultimate resistances to compression are insuperable by any force which we can employ. The repulsive forces, therefore, in their whole extent, increase faster than the compressions, and are expressed by an assymp-totic branch of the Boscovician curve formerly explained. It is therefore probable, especially in the more simple substances, that they increase faster, even in such compressions as frequently obtain in the breaking of hard bodies. We ate disposed to think that this is always the case in such bodies as do not fly off in splinters on the concave side; but this must be understood with the exception of the permanent changes which may be made by compression when the bodies are crippled by it. This always increases the compression itself, and causes the neutral point to shift still more towards D. The effect of this is sometimes very great and fatal.

Experiment alone can help us to discover the proportion between the dilatability and compressibility of bodies. The strain now under consideration seems the best calculated for this research. Thus if we find that a piece of wood an inch square requires 12,000 pounds to tear it asunder by a direct pull, and that 200 pounds will break it transversely by acting 10 inches from the section of fracture, we must conclude that the neutral point A is in the middle of the depth, and that the attractive and repulsive forces are equal. Any notions that we can form of the constitution of such fibrous bodies as timber, make us imagine that the sensible compressions, including what arises from the bending up of the compressed fibres, is much greater than the real corpuscular extensions. One may get a general conviction of this unexpected proposition by reflecting on what must happen during the fracture. An undulated fibre can only be drawn straight, and then the corpuscular extension begins; but it may be bent up by compression to any degree, the corpuscular compression being little affected all the while. This observation is very important; and though the forces of corpuscular repulsion may be almost insuperable by any compression that we can employ, a sensible compression may be produced by forces not enormous, sufficient to cripple the beam. Of this we shall see very important instances afterwards.

It deserves to be noticed,, that although the relative strength of a prismatic solid is extremely different in the three hypotheses now considered, yet the proportional[7:20:766] strengths of different pieces follow the same ratio, namely, the direct ratio of the breadth, the direct ratio of the square of the depth, and the inverse ratio of the length. In the first hypothesis (of equal forces) the strength of a rectangular beam was - ^^-; in the second (of attractive forces proportioned to the extensions) it was '^gγ'; and in the third (equal attractions and repulsions proportional to the extensions and compressions) it was - η^-, or more generally ^-γ, where m expresses the unknown proportion between the attractions and repulsions corresponding to an equal extension and compression.

Hence we derive a piece of useful information, which is confirmed by unexceptionable experience, that the strength of a piece depends chiefly on its depth, that is, on that dimension which is in the direction of the strain. A bar of timber of one inch in breadth and two inches in depth is four times as strong as a bar only one inch deep, and it is twice as strong as a bar two inches broad and one deep; that is, a joist or lever is always strongest when laid on its edge.

There is therefore a choice in the manner in which the cohesion is opposed to the strain. The general aim must be to put the centre of effort I as far from the fulcrum or the neutral point A as possible, so as to give the greatest energy or momentum to the cohesion. Thus if a triangular bar projecting from a wall is loaded with a weight at its extremity, it will bear thrice as much when one of the sides is uppermost as when it is undermost.

Hence it follows that the strongest joist that can be cut out of a round tree is not the one which has the greatest quantity of timber in it, but such that the product of its breadth by the square of its depth shall be the greatest possible. Let ABCD (fig. 7) be the section of this joist inscribed in the circle, A B being the breadth and AD the depth. Since it is a rectangular section, the diagonal BD is a diameter of the circle, and BAD is a right-angled triangle. Let BD be called a, and BA be called X; then A D = √ a' t —x 3 . Now we must have AB ∙ AD 2 , or x (a 2 — x 2 ), or a 2 - x — x 3 , a minimum; its differential (a 2 — 3x 2 ) dx must be 0, or a 2 — 3x 2 , or x 2 — If therefore we make DE = 1 / 3

DB, and draw EC perpendicular to BD, it will cut the circumference in the point C, which determines the depth BC and the breadth CD.

Because BD: BC = CD: CE, we have the area of the section BC·CD = BD·CE. Therefore the different sections having the same diagonal BD, are proportional to their heights CE. Therefore the section BCDA is less than the section B c D a , whose four sides are equal. The joist so shaped, therefore, is stronger, lighter, and cheaper.

The strength of ABCD is to that of a B c D as 10,000 to 9186, and the weight and expense as 10,000 to 10,607; so that ABCD is preferable to a B c D, in the proportion of 10,607 to 9186, or nearly 115 to 100.

From the same principles it follows that a hollow tube is stronger tban a solid rod containing the same quantity of matter. Let fig. 8 represent the section of a cylindric tube, of which AF and BE are the exterior and interior diameters, and C the centre. Draw BD perpendicular to BC, and join

DC. Then, because BD 2 = CD 2 —CB 2 , BD is the radius of a circle containing the same quantity of matter with the ring. If we estimate the strength by the first hypothesis, it is evident that the strength of the tube will be to that of the solid cylinder, whose radius is BD, as BD 2 × AC to BD 2 × BD; that is, as AC to BD; for BD 2 expresses the cohesion of the ring of the circle, and AC and BD are equal to distances of the centres of effort (the same with the centres of gravity) of the ring and circle from the axis of the fracture.

The proportion of these strengths will be different in the other hypothesis, and is not easily expressed by a general formula; but in both it is still more in favour of the ring or hollow tube.

The following very simple solution will be readily understood by the intelligent reader. Let O be the centre of oscillation of the exterior circle, o the centre of oscillation of the inner circle, and w the centre of oscillation of the ring included between them. Let M be the quantity of surface of the exterior circle, m that of the inner circle, and μ that of the ring. . . , ∣

, r , M∙FO-m∙Fa 5 FC s -4- EC !

W e have 1 u> = . , and μ — 4 FC

∕* u X Ft0 the strength of the ring = , and tire strength of the same quantity of matter in the form of a solid cylinder is f μ × 5 / 8 BD; so that the strength of the ring is to that of the solid rod of equal weight as F w to 5 / 4 BD, or nearly as FC to BD. This will easily appear by recollecting that FO is __ ⅜um ll *f r z (see Rotation) and that the momentum of m∙rC

, . . ∕λ∙FC∙Co f∕n∙Fo c , . . , cohesion is - q ∙ p(j '^- ~o— for the inner circle, &c.

Emerson has given a very inaccurate approximation to this value in his Mechanics, 4to.

This property of hollow tubes is accompanied also with greater stiffness; and the superiority in strength and stiffness is so much the greater as the surrounding shell is thinner in proportion to its diameter.

Here we see the admirable wisdom of the Author of nature in forming the bones of animal limbs hollow. The bones of the arms and legs have to perform the office of levers, and are thus opposed to very great transverse strains. By this form they become incomparably stronger and stiffer, and give more room for the insertion of muscles, while they are lighter and therefore more agile; and the same wisdom has made use of this hollow for other valuable purposes of the animal economy. In like manner the quills in the wings of birds acquire by their thinness the very great strength which is necessary, while they are so light as to give sufficient buoyancy to the animal in the rare medium in which it must live and fly about. The stalks of many plants, such as all the grasses, and many reeds, are in like manner hollow, and thus possess an extraordinary strength. Our best engineers now begin to imitate nature by making many parts of their machines hollow, such as their axles of cast iron, &c.; and the ingenious Mr Ramsden made the axes and framings of his great astronomical instruments in the same manner.

In the supposition of homogeneous texture, it is plain that the fracture happens as soon as the particles at D are separated beyond their utmost limit of cohesion. This is a determined quantity, and the piece bends till this degree of extension is produced in the uttermost fibre. It follows, that the smaller we suppose the distance between A and D, the greater will be the curvature which the beam will acquire before it breaks. Greater depth therefore makes a beam not only stronger, but also stiffer. But if the parallel fibres can slide on each other, both the strength and the stiffness will be diminished. Therefore, if, instead of one beam D∆KC (fig. 6), we suppose two, DABC and[7:20:767] A∆KB, not cohering, each of them will bend, and the extension of the fibres AB of the under beam will not hinder the compression of the adjoining fibres AB of the upper beam. The two together therefore will not be more than twice as strong as one of them (supposing DA — A∆), instead of being four times as strong; and they will bend as much as either of them alone would bend by half the load. This may be prevented, if it were possible to unite the two beams all along the seam AB, so that the one shall not slide on the other. This may be done in small works by gluing them together with a cement as strong as the natural lateral cohesion of the fibres. If this cannot be done (as it cannot in large works), the sliding is prevented by joggling the beams together, that is, by cutting down several rectangular notches in the upper side of the lower beam, and making similar notches in the under side of the upper beam, and filling up the square spaces with pieces of very hard wood firmly driven in, as represented in fig. 9. Some employ iron bolts by way of joggles. But when the joggle is much harder than the wood into which it is driven, it is very apt to work loose, by widening the hole into which it is lodged. The same thing is sometimes done by scarphing the one upon the other, as represented in fig. 10; but this wastes more timber, and is not so strong, because the mutual hooks which this method form on each beam are very apt to tear each other up. By one or other of these methods, or something similar, may a compound beam be formed, of any depth, which will be almost as stiff and strong as an entire piece.

On the other hand, we may combine strength with pliableness, by composing our beam of several thin planks laid on each other, till they make a proper depth, and leaving them at full liberty to slide on each other. It is in this manner that coach-springs are formed, as is represented in fig. 11. In this assemblage there must be no joggles nor bolts of any kind put through the planks or plates, for this would hinder their mutual sliding. They must be kept together by straps which surround them, or by something equivalent.

The preceding observations show the propriety of some maxims of construction, which the artists have derived from long experience.

Thus, if a mortise is to be cut out of a piece which is exposed to a cross strain, it should be cut out from that side which becomes concave by the strain.

If a piece is to be strengthened by the addition of another, the added piece must be joined to the side which grows convex by the strain.

Before we proceed any farther, it will be convenient to recall the reader’s attention to the analogy between the strain on a beam projecting from a wall and loaded at the extremity, and a beam supported at both ends and loaded in some intermediate point. It is sufficient on this occasion to read attentively what is delivered in the article Roof. We learn there that the strain on the middle point C (fig. 16 of the present article) of a rectangular beam AB, supported on props at A and B, is the same as if the part CA projected from a wall, and were loaded with the half of the weight W suspended at A. The momentum of the strain is therefore ½ W × ½ AB = W × ¼ AB =p ¼ l or pl / 4 . The momentum of cohesion must be equal to this in every hypothesis.

Having now considered in sufficient detail the circumstances which affect the strength of any section of a solid body that is strained transversely, it is necessary to take notice of some of the chief modifications of the strain itself. We shall consider only those that occur most frequently in our constructions.

The strain depends on the external force, and also on the lever by which it acts.

It is evidently of importance, that since the strain is exerted in any section by means of the cohesion of the parts intervening between the section under consideration and the point of application of the external force, the body must be able in all these intervening parts to propagate or excite the strain in the remote section. In every part it must be able to resist the strain excited in that part. It should therefore be equally strong; and it is useless to have any part stronger, because the piece will nevertheless break where it is not stronger throughout; and it is useless to make it stronger (relatively to its strain) in any part, for it will nevertheless equally fail in the part that is t∞ weak.

Suppose, then, in the first place, that the strain arises from a weight suspended at one extremity, while the other end is firmly fixed in a wall. Supposing also the cross sections to be all rectangular, there are several ways of shaping the beam so that it shall be equally strong throughout. Thus it may be equally deep in every part, the upper and under surfaces being horizontal planes. The condition will be fulfilled by making all the horizontal sections triangles, as in fig. 12. The two sides are vertical planes, meeting in an edge at the extremity L. For the equation expressing the balance of strain and strength is pl = fbd 2 . Therefore, since d 2 is the same throughout, and also p , we must have fb = l , and b (the breadth AD of any section ABCD) must be proportional to l (or AL), which it evidently is.

Or, if the beam be of uniform breadth, we must have d 2 everywhere proportional to Z. This will be obtained by making the depths the ordinates of a common parabola, of which L is the vertex and the length is the axis. The upper or under side may be a straight line, as in fig. 13, or the middle line may be straight, and then both upper and under surfaces will be curved. It is almost indifferent what is the shape of the upper and under surfaces, provided the distances between them in every part be at the ordinates of a common parabola.

Or, if the sections are all similar, such as circles, squares, or any other similar polygons, we must have d 2 or b 3 proportional to Z, and the depths or breadths must be as the ordinates of a cubical parabola.

It is evident that these are also the proper forms for a lever moveable round a fulcrum, and acted on by a force at the extremity. The force comes in the place of the weight suspended in the cases already considered; and as such levers always are connected with another arm, we readily see that both arms should be fashioned in the same manner. Thus in fig. 12 the piece of timber may be supposed a kind of steelyard, moveable round a horizontal axis in the front of the wall, and having the two weights P and π in equilibrio. The strain occasioned by each at the section in which the axis OP is placed must be the same, and each[7:20:768] arm OL and Oλ. must be equally strong in all its parts. The longitudinal sections of each arm must be a triangle, a common parabola, or a cubic parabola, according to the conditions previously given.

And, moreover, all these forms are equally strong; for any one of them is equally strong in all its parts, and they are all supposed to have the same section at the front of the wall or at the fulcrum. They are not, however, equally stiff. The first, represented in fig. 12, will bend least upon the whole, and the one formed by the cubic parabola will bend most. But their curvature at the very fulcrum will be the same in all.

It is also plain, that if the lever is of the second or third kind, that is, having the fulcrum at one extremity, it must still be of the same shape; for in abstract mechanics it is indifferent which of the three points is considered as the axis of motion. In every lever the two forces at the extremities act in one direction, and the force in the middle acts in the opposite direction, and the great strain is always at that point. Therefore a lever such as fig. 12, moveable round an axis passing horizontally through λ, and acting against an obstacle at OP, is equally able in all its parts to resist the strains excited in those parts.

The same principles and the same construction will apply to beams, such as joists, supported at the ends L and λ (fig. 12), and loaded at some intermediate part OP. This will appear evident by merely inverting the directions of the forces at these three points, or by recurring to tire article Roof, p. 444.

Hitherto we have supposed the external straining force as acting only in one point of the beam. But it may be uniformly distributed all over the beam. To make a beam in such circumstances equally strong in all its parts, the shape must be considerably different from the former.

Thus suppose the beam to project from a wall. If it be of equal breadth throughout, its sides being vertical planes parallel to each other and to the length, the vertical section in the direction of its length must be a triangle instead of a common parabola; for the weight uniformly distributed over the part lying beyond any section, is as the length beyond that section: and since it may all be conceived as collected at its centre of gravity, which is the middle of that length, the lever by which this load acts or strains the section is also proportioned to the same length. The strain on the section (or momentum of the load) is as the square of that length. The section must have strength in the same proportion. Its strength being as the breadth and the square of the depth, and the breadth being constant, the square of the depth of any section must be as the square of its distance from the end, and the depth must be as that distance; and therefore the longitudinal vertical section must be a triangle.

But if all the transverse sections are circles, squares, or any other similar figures, the strength of every section, or the cube of the diameter, must be as the square of the lengths beyond that section, or the square of its distance from the end; and the sides of the beam must be a semi-cubical parabola.

If the upper and under surfaces are horizontal planes, it is evident that the breadth must be as the square of the distance from the end, and the horizontal sections may be formed by arches of the common parabola, having the length for their tangent at the vertex.

By recurring to the analogy so often quoted between a projecting beam and a joist, we may determine the proper form of joists which are uniformly loaded through their whole length.

This is a frequent and important case, being the office of joists, rafters, &c.; and there are some circumstances which must be particularly noticed, because they are not so obvious, and have been misunderstood. When a beam AB (fig. 14) is supported at the ends, and a weight is laid on any point P, a strain is excited in every part of the beam.

The load on P causes the beam to press on A and B, and the props re-act with forces equal and opposite to these pressures. The load at P is to the pressures at A and B as A B to PB and PA, and the pressure at A is to that at B as BP to PA; the beam therefore is in the same state, with respect to strain in every part of it, as if it were resting on a prop at P, and were loaded at the ends with weights equal to the two pressures on the props: and observe, these pressures are such as will balance each other, being inversely as their distances from P. Let P represent the weight or load at P. The pressure on the prop P PA

must be P × PA / AB ; This is therefore the re-action of the prop

B, and is the weight which we may suppose suspended at B, when we conceive the beam resting on a prop at P, and carrying the balancing weights at A and B.

The strain occasioned at any other point C, by the load P at P, is the same with the strain at C, by the weight P × PA / AB hanging at B, when the beam rests on P, in the manner now supposed; and it is the same if the beam, instead of being balanced on a prop at P, had its part AP fixed in a wall. This is evident. Now we have shown at length that the strain at C, by the weight at B, is P × PA / AB × BC. We desire it to be particularly remarked, that the pressure at A has no influence on the strain at C, arising from the action of any load between A and C; for it is indifferent how the part AP of the projecting beam PB is supported. The weight at A just performs the same office with the wall in which we suppose the beam to be fixed. We are thus particular, because we have seen even persons not unaccustomed to discussions of this kind puzzled in their conceptions of this strain.

Now let the load P be laid on some point p between C and B. The same reasoning shows us that the point is, with respect to strain, in the same state as if the beam were fixed in a wall, embracing the part p B, and a weight = P × pB / AB were hung on at A, and the strain at C is P A b

× pB / AB × AC.

In general, therefore, the strain on any point C, arising from a load P laid on another point P, is proportional to the rectangle of the distances of P and C from the ends nearest to each. It is P × PA× CB / AB , or P× p B×CA / AB , according as the load lies between C and A or between C and B.

Cor. 1. The strains which a load on any point P occasions on the points C, c, lying on the same side of P, are as the distances of these points from the end B. In like manner the strains on E and e arc as EA and eA.

Cor. 2. The strain which a load occasions in the part on which it rests is as the rectangle of the parts on each side. Thus the strain occasioned at C by a load is to that at D by the same load as AC × CB to AD × DB. It is therefore greatest in the middle.

Let us now consider the strain on any point C arising from a load uniformly distributed along the beam. Let AP be represented by x, and P p by dx, and the whole weight on the beam by a. Then[7:20:769] _ , , _ . dx

The weight on Pp is = a -^.

_ _ , 1 . . r , dr AP

Pressure on B by the weight on Pp = a χ - βl

_ τΛ

θr = °ABi∙

⅜AC ’ AC i

Pressure on B by whole wt. on AC = α - g ^-- =: a

AC« y 1RC

Strain at C by the weight on AC = a- —2Aβ≈Γ" ,

BC 2 × AC

Strain at C by the weight on BC = a ——∙

2 Ali 1 rι , 11 . . aπ AC 2 × BC 4-BC t × AC

Do. by whole weight on Ali = a ,

2AB*

λ AC×BCx AC÷CB _ AC×BC ~° 2AB- ~ a 2ΛB -

Thus we see that the strain is proportional to the rectangle of the parts, in the same manner as if the load a had been laid directly on the point C, and is indeed equal to one half of the strain which would be produced at C by the load a laid on there.

It was necessary to be thus particular, because we see in some elementary treatises on mechanics, published by authors of reputation, mistakes which are very plausible, and mislead the learner. It is there said that the pressure at B from a weight uniformly diffused along AB, is the same as if it were collected at its centre of gravity, which would be the middle of AB; and then the strain at C is said to be this pressure at B multiplied by BC. But surely it is not difficult to see the difference of these strains. It is plain that the pressure of gravity downwards on any point between the end A and the point C has no tendency to diminish the strain at C, arising from the upward re-action of the prop B; whereas the pressure of gravity between C and B is almost in direct opposition to it, and must diminish it. We may however avoid the fluxionary calculus with safety by the consideration of the centre of gravity, by supposing the weights of AC and BC to be collected at their respective centres of gravity; and the result of this computation will be the same as above: and we may use either method, although the weight he not uniformly distributed, provided only that we know in what manner it is distributed.

This investigation is evidently of importance in the practice of the engineer and architect, informing them what support is necessary in the different parts of their constructions. We considered some cases of this kind in the article Roof.

It is now easy to form a joist so that it shall have the same relative strength in all its parts.

I. To make it equally able in all its parts to carry a given weight laid on any point C taken at random, or uniformly diffused over the whole length, the strength of the section at the point C must be as AC X CB. Therefore,

1. If the sides be parallel vertical planes, the square of the depth (which is the only variable dimension), or CD 2 , must be as AC × CB, and the depths must be ordinates of an ellipse.

2. If the transverse sections be similar, we must make CD 3 as AC X CB.

3. If the upper and under surfaces be parallel, the breadth must be as AC X CB.

II. If the beam be necessarily loaded at some given point C, and we would have the beam equally able in all its parts to resist the strain arising from the weight at C, we must make the strength of every transvense section between C and either end as its distance from that end. Therefore,

1. If the sides be parallel vertical planes, we must make CD , : EF 2 = AC: AE.

2. If the sections be similar, then CD 3 : EF 3 = AC: AE.

3. If the upper and under surfaces be parallel, then breadth at C: breadth at E = AC: AE.

The same principles enable us to determine the strain and strength of square or circular plates of different extent but equal thickness. This may be comprehended in this general proposition.

Similar plates of equal thickness supported all round will carry the same absolute weight, uniformly distributed, or resting on similar points, whatever be their extent.

Suppose two similar oblong plates of equal thickness, and let their lengths and breadths be L, ∕, and B, b. Let their strength or momentum of cohesion be C, c, and the strains from the weights W, w, be S, s.

Suppose the plates supported at the ends only, and resisting fracture transversely. The strains, being as the weights and lengths, are as WL and wl, but their cohesions are as the breadths; and since they are of equal relative strength, we have WL: wl = B: b, and WL5 ≡ wlB, and L: l = wB: Wb; but since they are of similar shapes, L: l = B: b, and therefore w — W.

The same reasoning holds again when they are also supported along the sides, and therefore holds when they are supported all round (in which case the strength is doubled).

And if the plates be of any other figure, such as circles or ellipses, we need only conceive similar rectangles inscribed in them. These are supported all around by the continuity of the plates, and therefore will sustain equal weights; and the same may be said of the segments which lie without them, because the strengths of any similar segments are equal, their lengths being as their breadths.

Therefore the thickness of the bottoms of vessels holding heavy liquors or grains should be as their diameters and as the square root of their depths jointly.

Also the weight which a square plate will bear is to that which a bar of the same matter and thickness will bear as twice the length of the bar to its breadth.

There is yet another modification of the strain which tends to break a body transversely, which is of very frequent occurrence, and in some cases must be very carefully attended to, viz. the strain arising from its own weight.

When a beam projects from a wall, every section is strained by the weight of all that projects beyond it. This may be considered as all collected at its centre of gravity. Therefore the strain on any section is in the joint ratio of the weight of what projects beyond it, and the distance of its centre of gravity from the section.

The determination of this strain, and of the strength necessary for withstanding it, must be more complicated than the former, because the form of the piece which results from this adjustment of strain and strength influences the strain. The general principle must evidently be, that the strength or momentum of cohesion of every section must be as the product of the weight beyond it, multiplied by the distance of its centre of gravity. For example:

Suppose the beam DLA (fig. 15) to project from the wall, and that its sides are parallel vertical planes, so that the depth is the only variable dimension. Let LB = x and B b = y. The element BbcC is = xy. Let G be the centre of gravity of the part lying without Βb, and g be its distance from the extremity L. Then at— g is the arm of the lever by which the strain is excited in the section Bb.[7:20:770] Let B b or y be as some power m of LB; that is, let v=x m . Then the contents of LB b is ——. The j m + 1

momentum of gravity round a horizontal axis at L is yxdx=x m+2 dx, and the whole momentum round the axis is

——. The distance of the centre of gravity from L is m -f- 2

had by dividing this momentum by the whole weight, which ar '"* 1 TL .∙ . . x × m + 1 , x , ,.

is -. The quotient or g is — √—, and the dis-

nι -∣- 1 m-∣-2

tance of the centre of gravity from the section B b is x × m + l x× m4-2— r×m-l-l x X = !! — = ——τr. Therein + 2 nt -∣- 2 nt -f- 2

fore the strain on the section BZ> is had by multiplying 3 -m∖∖ j, ∙ r m÷2

rby—-—-. The product is — This + 1 ’ + 2 m + 2 X m + 1

must be as the square of the depth, or as y~. But y is x m , and y 2 as x 2m . Therefore we have m + 2 = 2 m , and m = 2; that is, the depth must be as the square of the distance from the extremity, and the curve L b A is a parabola touching the horizontal line in L.

It is easy to see that a conoid formed by the rotation of this figure round DL will also be equally able in every section to bear its own weight.

We need not prosecute this farther. When the figure of the piece is given, there is no difficulty in finding the strain; and the circumstance of equal strength to resist this strain is chiefly a matter of curiosity.

It is evident, from what has been already said, that a projecting beam becomes less able to bear its own weight as it projects farther. Whatever may be the strength of the section DA, the length may be such that it will break by its own weight. If we suppose two beams A and B of the same substance and similar shapes, that is, having their lengths and diameters in the same proportion; and further suppose that the shorter can just bear its own weight; then the longer beam will not be able to do the same; for the strengths of the sections are as the cubes of the diameters, while the strains are as the biquadrates of the diameters; because the weights are as the cubes, and the levers by which these weights act in producing the strain are as the lengths or as the diameters.

These considerations show us, that in all cases where strain is affected by the weight of the parts of the machine or structure of any kind, the smaller bodies are more able to withstand it than the greater; and there seem to be bounds set by nature to the size of machines constructed of any given materials. Even when the weight of the parts of the machine is not taken into the account, we cannot enlarge them in the same proportion in all their parts. Thus a steam-engine cannot be doubled in all its parts, so as to be still efficient. The pressure on the piston is quadrupled. If the lift of the pump be also doubled in height while it is doubled in diameter, the load will be increased eight times, and will therefore exceed the power. The depth of lift, therefore, must remain unchanged; and in this case the machine will be of the same relative strength as before, independent of its own weight. For the beam being doubled in all its dimensions, its momentum of cohesion is eight times greater, which is again a balance for a quadruple load acting by a double lever. But if we now consider the increase of the weight of the machine itself, which must be supported, and which must be put in motion by the intervention of its cohesion, we see that the large machine is weaker and less efficient than the small one.

There is a similar limit set by nature to the size of plants and animals formed of the same matter. The cohesion of an herb could not support it if it were increased to the size of a tree, nor could an oak support itself if forty or fifty times bigger; nor could an animal of the make of a long-legged spider be increased to the size of a man; the articulations of its legs could not support it.

Hence may be understood the prodigious superiority of the small animals both in strength and agility. A man by falling twice his own height may break his firmest bones. A mouse may fall twenty times its height without risk; and even the tender mite or wood louse may fall unhurt from the top of a steeple. But their greatest superiority is in respect of nimbleness and agility. A flea can leap above 500 times its own length, while the strength of the human muscles could not raise the trunk from the ground on limbs of the same construction.

The angular motions of small animals (in which consists their nimbleness or agility) must be greater than those of large animals, supposing the force of the muscular fibre to be the same in both. For supposing them similar, the number of equal fibres will be as the square of their linear dimensions; and the levers by which they act are as their linear dimensions. The energy therefore of the moving force is as the cube of these dimensions. But the momentum of inertia, or ∫ p ∙ r 2 , is as the fourth power; therefore the angular velocity of the greater animals is smaller. The number of strokes which a fly makes with its wings in a second is astonishingly great; yet, being voluntary, they are the effects of its agility.

We have hitherto confined our attention to the simplest form in which this transverse strain can be produced. This was quite sufficient for showing us the mechanism of nature by which the strain is resisted; and a very slight attention is sufficient for enabling us to reduce to this every other way in which the strain can be produced. We shall not take up the reader’s time with the application of the same principles to other cases of this strain, but refer him to what has been said in the article Roof. In that article we have shown the analogy between the strain on the section of a beam projecting from a wall and loaded at the extremity, and the strain on the same section of a beam simply resting on supports at the ends, and loaded at some intermediate point or points. The strain on the middle C of a beam AB (fig. 16) so supported, arising from a weight laid on there, is the same with the strain which half that weight hanging at B would produce on the same section C, if the other end of the beam were fixed in a wall. If therefore 1000 pounds hung on the end of a beam projecting ten feet from a wall will just break it at the wall, it will require 4000 pounds on its middle to break the same beam resting on two props ten feet asunder. We have also shown in that article the additional strength which will be given to this beam by extending both ends beyond the props, and there framing it firmly into other pillars or supports. We can hardly add any thing to what has been said in that article, except a few observations on the effects of the obliquity of the external force. We have hitherto supposed it to act in the direction BP (fig. 6) perpendicular to the length of the beam. Suppose it to act in the direction BP', oblique to BA. In the article Roof we supposed the strain to be the same as if the force p acted at the distance AB', but still perpendicular to AB: so it is. But the strength of the section A∆ is not the same in both cases; for by the obliquity of the action the piece DCK∆ is pressed to the other. We are not sufficiently acquainted with the corpuscular forces to say precisely what will be the effect of the pressure arising from this obliquity; but we can clearly see in general, that the point A, which in the instant of fracture[7:20:771] is neither stretched nor compressed, must now be farther up, or nearer to D; and therefore the number of particles which are exerting cohesive forces is smaller, and therefore the strength is diminished. Therefore, when we endeavour to proportion the strength of a beam to the strain arising from an external force acting obliquely, we make too liberal allowance by increasing this external force in the ratio of AB to AB'. We acknowledge our inability to assign the proper correction. But this circumstance is of very great influence. In many machines, and many framings of carpentry, this oblique action of the straining force is unavoidable; and the most enormous strains to which materials are exposed are generally of this kind. In the frames set up for carrying the ringstones of arches, it is hardly possible to avoid them; for although the judicious engineer dispose his beams so as to sustain only pressures in the direction of their lengths, tending either to crush them or to tear them asunder, it frequently happens that, by the settling of the work, the pieces come to check and. bear on each other transversely, tending to break each other across. This we have remarked upon in the article Roof, with respect to a truss by Mr Price (see Roof, p. 452-54). Now when a cross strain is thus combined with an enormous pressure in the direction of the length of the beam, it is in the utmost danger of snapping suddenly across. This is one great cause of the carrying away of masts. They are compressed in the direction of their length by the united force of the shrouds, and in this state the transverse action of the wind soon completes the fracture.

When considering the compressing strains to which materials are exposed, we deferred the discussion of the strain on columns, observing that it was not, in the cases which usually occur, a simple compression, but was combined with a transverse strain, arising from the bending of the column. When the column ACB (fig. 17), resting on tl∣e ground at B, and loaded at top with a weight A, acting in the vertical direction AB, is bent into a curve ACB, so that the tangent at C is perpendicular to the horizon, its condition somewhat resembles that of a beam firmly fixed between B and C, and strongly pulled by the end A, so as to bend it between C and A. Although we cannot conceive how a force acting on a straight column AB in the direction AB can bend it, we may suppose that the force acted first in the horizontal direction Aft till it was bent to this degree, and that the rope was then gradually removed from the direction Aft to the direction AB, increasing the force as much as is necessary for preserving the same quantity of flexure.

The first author, we believe, who considered this important subject with scrupulous attention was the celebrated Euler, who published in the Berlin Memoirs for 1757 his Theory of the Strength of Columns. The general proposition established by this theory is, that the strength of prismatical columns is in the direct quadruplicate ratio of their diameters, and the inverse duplicate ratio of their lengths. he prosecuted this subject in the Petersburg Commentaries for 1778, confirming his former theory. We do not find that any other author has bestowed much attention on it, all seeming to acquiesce in the determinations of Euler, and to consider the subject as of very great difficulty, requiring the application of the most refined mathematics. Muschenbroeck has compared the theory with experiment; but the comparison has been very unsatisfactory, the difference from the theory being so enormous as to afford no argument for its justness. But the experiments do not contradict it, for they are so anomalous as to afford no conclusion or general rule whatever.

To say the truth, the theory can be considered in no other light than as a specimen of ingenious and very artfill algebraic analysis. Euler was unquestionably the first analyst in Europe for resource and address. He knew this, and enjoyed his superiority, and without scruple admitted any physical assumptions which gave him an opportunity of displaying his skill. The inconsistency of his assumptions with the known laws of mechanism gave him no concern; and when his algebraic processes led him to any conclusion which would make his readers stare, being contrary to all our usual notions, he frankly owned the paradox, but went on in his analysis, saying, Sed analyst magis fidendum. Mr Robins has given some very risible instances of this confidence in his analysis, or rather of his confidence in the indolent submission of his readers. Nay, so fond was he of this kind of amusement, that after having published an untenable Theory of Light and Colours, he published several Memoirs, explaining the aberration of the heavenly bodies, deducing some very wonderful consequences, fully confirmed by experience, from the Newtonian principles, which were opposite and totally inconsistent with his own theory, merely because the Newtonian theory gave him occasionem analyseos promovenda·. We are thus severe in our observations, because his Theory of the Strength of Columns is one of the strongest instances of this wanton kind of proceeding, and because his followers in the Academy of St Petersburg, such as Fuss, Lexill, and others, adopt his conclusions, and merely echo his words. Since the death of Daniel Bernoulli, no member of that academy has controverted any thing advanced by their Professor sublimis Geometrice, to whom they had been indebted for their places and for all their knowledge, having been (most of them) his amanuenses, employed by this wonderful man during his blindness, to make his computations and carry on his algebraic investigations. We are not a little surprised to see Mr Emerson, a considerable mathematician, and a man of very independent spirit, hastily adopting the same theory, of which we doubt not but our readers will easily see the falsity.

Euler considers the column ACB as in a condition precisely similar to that of an elastic rod bent into the curve by a cord AB connecting its extremities. In this he is not mistaken. But he then draws CD perpendicudar to AB, and considers the strain on the section C as equal to the momentum or mechanical energy of the weight A, acting in the direction DE, upon the lever kc D, moveable round the fulcrum c, and tending to tear asunder the particles which cohere along the section c C k. This is the same principle (as Euler admits) employed by James Bernoulli in his investigation of the elastic curve ACB. Euler considers the strain on the section ck as the same with what it would sustain if the same power acted in the horizontal direction EF on a point E, as far removed from C as the point D is. We reasoned in the same manner (as has been observed) in the article Roof, where the obliquity of action was inconsiderable. But in the present case this substitution leads to the greatest mistakes, and has rendered the whole of this theory false and useless. It would be just if the column were of materials which are incompressible. But it is evident, by what has been said above, that by the compression of the parts the real fulcrum of the lever shifts away from the point c , so much the more as the compression is greater. In the great compressions of loaded columns, and the almost unmeasurable compressions of the truss-beams in the centres of bridges, and other cases of chief importance, the fulcrum is shifted far over towards k, so that very few fibres resist the fracture by their cohesion, and these few have a very feeble energy or momentum, on account of the short arm of the lever by which they act. This is a most important consideration in carpentry, yet makes no element of Euler’s theory. The consequence of this is, that a very small degree of curvature is sufficient[7:20:772] 'to cause the column or strut to snap in an instant, as is well known to every experienced carpenter. The experiment by Muschenbroeck, which Euler makes use of in order to obtain a measure of strength in a particular instance, from which he might deduce all others by his theorem, is an incontestable proof of this. The force which broke the column is not the twentieth part of what is necessary for breaking it by acting at E in the direction EF. Euler takes no notice of this immense discrepancy, because it must have caused him to abandon the speculation with which he was then amusing himself.

The limits of this work do not afford room to enter minutely upon the refutation of this theory; but we can easily show its uselessness, by its total inconsistency with common observation. It results legitimately from this theory, that if CD have no magnitude, the weight A can have no momentum, and the column cannot be broken. True, it cannot be broken in this way, snapped by a transverse fracture, if it do not bend; but we know very well that it can be crushed or crippled, and we see this frequently happen. This circumstance or event does not enter into Euler’s investigation, and therefore the theory is at least imperfect and useless. Had this crippling been introduced in the form of a physical assumption, every topic of reasoning employed in the process must have been laid aside, as the intelligent reader will easily see. But the theory is not only imperfect, but false. The ordinary reader will be convinced of this by another legitimate consequence of it. Fig. 18 is the same with fig. 106 of Emerson’s Mechanics, where this subject is treated on Euler’s principles, and represents a crooked piece of matter resting on the ground at F, and loaded at A with a weight acting in the vertical direction AF. It results from Euler’s theory that the strains at b, B, D, E, &c. are as bc, BC, DI, EK, &c. Therefore the strains at G and H are nothing; and this is asserted by Emerson and Euler as a serious truth; and the piece may be thinned ad infinitum in these two places, or even cut through, without any diminution of its strength. The absurdity of litis assertion strikes at first hearing. Euler asserts the same thing with respect to a point of contrary flexure. Farther discussion is, we apprehend, needless.

This theory must therefore be given up. Yet these dissertations of Euler in the Petersburg Commentaries deserve a perusal, both as very ingenious specimens of analysis, and because they contain maxims of practice which are important. Although they give an erroneous measure of the comparative strength of columns, they show the immense importance of preventing all bendings, and point out with accuracy where the tendencies to bend are greatest, and how this may be prevented by very small forces, and what a prodigious accession of force this gives the column. There is a valuable paper in the same volume by Fuss on the Strains on framed Carpentry, which may also be read with advantage.

It will now be asked, what shall be substituted in place of this erroneous theory? what is the true proportion of the strength of columns? We acknowledge our inability to give a satisfactory answer. This can only be obtained by a previous knowledge of the proportion between the extensions and compressions produced by equal forces, by the knowledge of the absolute compressions producible by a given force, and by a knowledge of the degree of that derangement of parts which is termed crippling. These circumstances are but imperfectly known to us, and there lies before us a wide field of experimental inquiry. Fortunately the force requisite for crippling a beam is prodigious, and a very small lateral support is sufficient to prevent that bending which puts the beam in imminent danger. A judicious engineer will always employ transverse bridles, as they arc called to stay the middle of long beams which are employed as pillars, struts, or truss-beams, and are exposed, by their position, to enormous pressures in the direction of their lengths. Such stays may be observed, disposed with great judgment and economy, in the centres employed by Mr Perronet in the erection of his great stone arches. He was obliged to correct this omission made by his ingenious predecessor in the beautiful centres of the bridge of Orleans, which we have no hesitation in affirming to be the finest piece of carpentry in the world.

It only remains on this head to compare these theoretical deductions with experiment.

Experiments on the transverse strength of bodies are easily made, and accordingly are very numerous, especially those made on timber, which is the case most common and most interesting. But in this great number of experiments there are very few from which we can draw much practical information. The experiments have in general been made on such small scantlings, that the unavoidable natural inequalities bear too great a proportion to the strength of the whole piece. Accordingly, when we compare the experiments of different authors, we find them differ enormously, and even the experiments by the same author are very anomalous. The completent series that we have yet seen is that detailed by Behdor in his Science des Ingenieurs. They are contained in the following table. The pieces were sound, even-grained oak. The column b contains the breadths of the pieces in inches; the column d contains their depths; the column l contains their lengths; column p contains the weights (in pounds) which broke them when hung on their middles; and in is the column of averages or mediums.
[table]
[7:20:773]

By comparing Experiments 1st and 3d, the strength appears proportional to the breadth.

Experiments 3d and 4th show the strength proportional to the square of the depth.

Experiments 1st and 5th show the strength nearly in the inverse proportion of the lengths, but with a sensible deficiency in the longer pieces.

Experiments 5th and 7th show the strengths proportional to the breadths and the square of the depth.

Experiments 1st and 7th show the same thing, compounded with the inverse proportion of the length: here the deficiency relative to the length is not so remarkable.

Experiments 1st and 2d, and experiments 5th and 6th, show the increase of strength, by fastening the ends, to be in the proportion of two to three. The theory gives the proportion of two to four. But a difference in the manner of fixing may produce this deviation from the theory, which only supposed them to be held down at places beyond the props, as when a joist is held in the walls, and also rests on two pillars between the walls.

The chief source of irregularity in such experiments is the fibrous, or rather plated texture of timber. It consists of annual additions, whose cohesion with each other is vastly weaker than that of their own fibres. Let fig. 19 represent the section of a tree, and ABCD, abed the section of two battens that are to be cut out of it for experiment, and let AD and ad be the depths, and DC, dc the breadths. The batten ABCD will be the stronger, for the same reason that an assemblage of planks set edgewise will form a stronger joist than planks laid above each other like the plates of a coach-spring. Μ. Buffon found by many trials that the strength of ABCD was to that of abed (in oak) nearly as eight to seven. The authors of the different experiments were not careful that their battens had their plates all disposed similarly with respect to the strain. But even with this precaution they would not have afforded sure grounds of computation for large works; for great beams occupy much, if not the whole, of the section of the tree; and from this it has happened that their strength is less than in proportion to that of a small lath or batten. In short, we can trust no experiments but such as have been made on large beams. These must be very rare, for they are most expensive and laborious, and exceed the abilities of most of those who are disposed to study this subject.

But we are not wholly without such authority. Μ. Buffon and Μ. Duhamel, two of the first philosophers and mechanicians of the age, were directed by government to make experiments on this subject, and were supplied with ample funds and apparatus. The relation of their experiments is to be found in the Memoirs of the French Academy for 1740, 1741, 1742, 1768; as also in Duhamel’s valuable performances Sur l’Exploitation des Arbres, et sur la Conservation et le Transport de Bois. We earnestly recommend these dissertations to the perusal of our readers, as containing much useful information relative to the strength of timber, and the best methods of employing it. We shall here give an abstract of Μ. Buffon’s experiments.

He relates a great number which, during two years, he had prosecuted on small battens. He found that the odds of a single layer, or part of a layer, more or less, or even a different disposition of them, had such influence that he was obliged to abandon this method, and to have recourse to the largest beams that he was able to break. The following table exhibits one series of experiments on bars of sound oak, clear of knots, and four inches square. This is a specimen of all the rest.

Column 1st is the length of the bar in clear feet between the supports.

Column 2d is the weight of the bar (the second day after it was felled) in pounds. Two bars were tried of each length. Each of the first three pairs consisted of two cuts of the same tree. The one next the root was always found the heaviest, stiffest, and strongest. Indeed Μ. Buffon says that this was invariably true, that the heaviest was always the strongest; and he recommends it as a certain (or sure) rule for the choice of timber. He finds that this is always the case when the timber has grown vigorously, forming very thick annual layers. But he also observes that this is only during the advances of the tree to maturity; for the strength of the different circles approaches gradually to equality during the tree’s healthy growth, and then it decays in these parts in a contrary order. Our tool-makers assert the same thing with respect to beech: yet a contrary opinion is very prevalent; and wood with a fine, that is, a small grain, is frequently preferred. Perhaps no person has ever made the trial with such minuteness as Μ. Buffon, and we think that much deference is due to his opinion.

Column 3d is the number of pounds necessary for breaking the tree in the course of a few minutes.

Column 4th is the number of inches which it bent down before breaking.

Column 5th is the time at which it broke.
[table]

The experiments on other sizes were made in the same way. A pair at least of each length and size was taken. The mean results are contained in the following table. The beams were all square, and their sizes in inches are placed at the head of the columns, and their lengths in feet are in the first column.
[table]

Μ. Buffon had found, by numerous trials, that oak-timber lost much of its strength in the course of drying or season-[7:20:774] ing; and therefore, in order to secure uniformity, his trees were all felled in the same season of the year, were squared the day after, and tried the third day. Trying them in this green state gave him an opportunity of observing a very curious and unaccountable phenomenon. When the weights were laid briskly on, nearly sufficient to break the log, a very sensible smoke was observed to issue from the two ends with a sharp hissing noise. This continued all the while the tree was bending and cracking. This shows that the log is affected or strained through its whole length. Indeed this must be inferred from its bending through its whole length. It also shows us the great effects of the compression. It is a pity Μ. Buffon did not take notice whether this smoke issued from the upper or compressed half of the section only, or whether it came from the whole.

We must now make some observations on these experiments, in order to compare them with the theory which we have endeavoured to establish.

Μ. Buffon considers the experiments with the five-inch bars as tire standard of comparison, having both extended these to greater lengths, and having tried more pieces of each length.

Our theory determines the relative strength of bars of the same section to be inversely as their lengths. But, if we except the five experiments in the first column, we find a very great deviation from this rule. Thus the five-inch bar of twenty-eight feet long should have half the strength of that of fourteen feet, or 2650; whereas it is but 1775. The bar of fourteen feet should have half the strength of that of seven feet, or 5762; whereas it is but 5360. In like manner, the fourth of 11,525 is 2881; but the real strength of the twenty-eight feet bar is 1775. We have added a column A, which exhibits the strength which each of the five-inch bars ought to have by the theory. This deviation is most distinctly seen in fig. 20, where BK is the scale of lengths, B being at the point seven of the scale, and K at twenty-eight. The ordinate CB is = 11,525, and the other ordinates DE, GK, &c. are respectively = 7CB / length . The lines DF, GH, &c. arc made = 4350, 1775, &c, expressing the strengths given by experiment. The ten-feet bar and the twenty-four feet bar are remarkably anomalous. But all are deficient, and the defect has an evident progression from the first to the last. The same thing may be shown of the other columns, and even of the first, though it is very small in that column. It may also be observed in the experiments of Belidor, and in all that we have seen. We cannot doubt therefore of its being a law of nature, depending on the true principles of cohesion and the laws of mechanics.

But it is very puzzling, and we cannot pretend to give a satisfactory explanation of the difficulty. The only effect which we can conceive the length of a beam to have, is to increase the strain at the section of fracture, by employing the intervening beam as a lever. But we do not distinctly see what change this can produce in the mode of action of the fibres in this section, so as either to change their cohesion or the place of its centre of effort: yet something of this kind must happen.

We see indeed some circumstances which must contribute to make a smaller weight sufficient, in Μ. Buffon’s experiments, to break a long beam, than in the exact inverse proportion of its length.

In the first place, the weight of the beam itself augments the strain as much as if half of it were added in the form of a weight. Μ. Buffon has given the weights of every beam on which he made experiments, which is very nearly seventy-four pounds per cubic loot. But they are much too small to account for the deviation from the theory. The half weights of the five-inch beams of seven, fourteen, and twenty-eight feet length, are only forty-five, ninety-two, and 182 pounds; which makes the real strains in the experiments 11,560, 5390, and 1956; which are far from having the proportions of four, two, and one.

Buffon says that healthy trees arc universally strongest at the root end; therefore, when we use a longer beam, its middle point, where it is broken in the experiment, is in a weaker part of the tree. But the trials of the four-inch beams show that the difference from this cause is almost insensible.

The length must have some mechanical influence which the theory we have adopted has not yet explained. It may not however be inadequate to the task. The very ingenious investigation of the elastic curve by James Bernoulli and other celebrated mathematicians is perhaps as refined an application of mathematical analysis as we know. Yet in this investigation it was necessary, in order to avoid almost insuperable difficulties, to take the simplest possible case, viz. where the thickness is exceedingly small in comparison with the length. If the thickness be considerable, the quantities neglected in the calculus are too great to permit the conclusion to be accurate, or very nearly so. Without being able to define the form into which an elastic body of considerable thickness will be bent, we can say with confidence, that in an extreme case, where the compression in the concave side is very great, the curvature differs considerably from the Bernoullian curve. But as our investigation is incomplete and very long, we do not offer it to the reader. The following more familiar considerations will, we apprehend, render it highly probable that the relative strength of beams decreases faster than in the inverse ratio of their length. The curious observation by Μ. Buffon, of the vapour which issued with the hissing noise from the ends of a beam of green oak, while it was breaking by the load on its middle, shows that the whole length of the piece was affected: indeed it must be, since it is bent throughout. We have shown above, that a certain definite curvature of a beam of a given form is always accompanied by rupture. Now suppose the beam A of ten feet long, and the beam B of twenty feet long, bent to the same degree, at the place of their fixture in the wall; the weight which hangs on A is nearly double of that which must hang on B. The form of any portion, suppose five feet, of these two beams, immediately adjoining to the wall, is considerably different. At the distance of five feet the curvature of A is half of its curvature at the wall. The curvature of B in the corresponding point is three fourths of the same curvature at the wall. Through the whole of the intermediate five feet, therefore, the curvature of B is greater than that of A. This must make it weaker throughout. It must occasion the fibres to slide more on each other (that it may acquire this greater curvature), and thus affect their lateral union; and therefore those which are stronger will not assist their weaker neighbours. To this we must add, that in the shorter beams the force with which the fibres are pressed laterally on each other is double. This must impede the[7:20:775] mutual eliding of the fibres which we mentioned a little ago; nay, this lateral compression may change the law of longitudinal cohesion (as will readily appear to the reader who is acquainted with Boscovich’s doctrines), and increase the strength of the very surface of fracture, in the same way (however inexplicable) as it does in metals when they are hammered or drawn into wire.

The reader must judge how far these remarks are worthy of his attention. The engineer will carefully keep in mind the important fact, that a beam of quadruple length, instead of having one fourth of the strength, has only about one sixth; and the philosopher should endeavour to discover the cause of this diminution, that he may give the artist a more accurate rule of computation.

Our ignorance of the law by which the cohesion of the particles changes by a change of distance, hinders us from discovering the precise relation between the curvature and the momentum of cohesion; and all we can do is to multiply experiments, upon which we may establish some empirical rules for calculating the strength of solids. Those from which we must reason at present are too few and too anomalous to be the foundation of such an empirical formula. We may however observe, that Μ. Buffon’s experiments gave us considerable assistance in this particular; for if to each of the numbers of the column for the five-inch beams, corrected by adding half the weight of the beam, we add the constant number 1245, we shall have a set of numbers which are very nearly reciprocals of the lengths. Let 1245 be called c , and let the weight which is known by experiment to be necessary for breaking the five-inch beam of the length a be called P. We shall have — c∙=,p.

Thus the weight necessary for breaking the seven-feet bar is 11,560. This added to 1245, and the sum multiplied by 7, gives P-f-c×α=89,635. LetZbelS; then^^’^^—1245 =3725 = p, which differs not more than 1 / 40 th from what experiment gives us. This rule holds equally well in all the other lengths except the 10 and 24 feet beams, which are very anomalous. Such a formula is abundantly exact for practice, and will answer through a much greater variety of length, though it cannot be admitted as a true one; because, in a certain very great length, the strength will be nothing. For other sizes the constant number must change in the proportion of d 3 , or perhaps of p.

The next comparison which we have to make with the theory is the relation between the strength and the square of the depth of the section. This is made by comparing with each other the numbers in any horizontal line of the table. In making this comparison we find the numbers of the five-inch bars uniformly greater than the rest. We imagine that there is something peculiar to these bars; they are in general heavier than in the proportion of their section, but not so much so as to account for all their superiority. We imagine that this set of experiments, intended as a standard for the rest, has been made at one time, and that the season has had a considerable influence. The fact however is, that if this column be kept out, or uniformly diminished about one sixteenth in their strength, the different sizes will deviate very little from the ratio of the square of the depth, as determined by theory. There is however a small deficiency in the bigger beams.

We have been thus anxious in the examination of these experiments, because they are the only ones which have been related in sufficient detail, and made on a proper scale for giving us data from which we can deduce confidential maxims for practice. They are so troublesome and expensive that we have little hopes of seeing their number greatly increased; yet surely our navy board would do an unspeakable service to the public by appropriating a fund for such experiments under the management of some man of science.

There remains another comparison which is of chief importance, namely, the proportion between the absolute cohesion and the relative strength. It may be guessed, from the very nature of the thing, that this must be very uncertain. Experiments on the absolute strength must be confined to very small pieces, by reason of the very great forces which are required for tearing them asunder. The values therefore deduced from them must be subject to great inequalities. Unfortunately we possess no detail of any experiments; all that we have to depend on are two passages of Muschenbroeck’s Essais de Physique; in one of which he says, that a piece of sound oak 27 / 100 ths of an inch square is torn asunder by 1150 pounds; and in the other, that an oak plank twelve inches broad and one thick will just suspend 189,163 pounds. These give for the cohesion of an inch square 15,755 and 15,763 pounds. Bouguer, in his Traité du Navire, says that it is very well known that a rod of sound oak one fourth of an inch square will be torn asunder by 1000 pounds. This gives 16,000 for the cohesion of a square inch. We shall take this as a round number, easily used in our computations. Let us compare this with Μ. Buffon’s trials of beams four inches square.

The absolute cohesion of this section is 16,000×16= 256,000. Did every fibre exert its whole force in the instant of fracture, the momentum of cohesion would be the same as if it had all acted at the centre of gravity of the section at two inches from the axis of fracture, and is therefore 512,000. The four-inch beam, seven feet long, was broken by 5312 pounds hung on its middle. The half of this, or 2656 pounds, would have broken it, if suspended at its extremity, projecting 3½ feet, or 42 inches, from a wall. The momentum of this strain is therefore 2656×42 = 111,552. Now this is in equilibrio with the actual momentum of cohesion, which is therefore 111,552 instead of 512,000. The strength is therefore diminished in the proportion of 512,000 to 111,552, or very nearly of 4∙59 to 1.

As we are quite uncertain as to the place of the centre of effort, it is needless to consider the full cohesion as acting at the centre of gravity, and producing the momentum 512,000; and we may convert the whole into a simple multiplier in of the length, and say, as in times the length is to the depth, so is the absolute cohesion of the section to the relative strength. Therefore let the absolute cohesion of a square inch be called f, the breadth b, the depth d, and the length I (all in inches), the relative strength, or the exter- fbd 3 nal force, p, which balances it, is ’ -, or, in round num-

y* 18*

bers,∙^^-; for m=2×4∙59.

y*

This great diminution of strength cannot be wholly accounted for by the inequality of the cohesive forces exerted in the instant of fracture; for in this case we know that the centre of effort is at one third of the height in a rectangular section (because the forces really exerted are as the extensions of the fibres). The relative strength would fbtP and p would have been 8127 instead of 2656.

We must ascribe this diminution (which is three times greater than that produced by the inequality of the cohesive forces) to the compression of the under part of the beam; and we must endeavour to explain in what manner this compression produces an effect which seems so little explicable by such means.

As we have repeatedly observed, it is a matter of nearly universal experience that the forces actually exerted by the[7:20:776] particles of bodies, when stretched or compressed, are very nearly in the proportion of the distances to which the particles are drawn from their natural positions. Now, although we are certain that, in enormous compressions, the forces increase faster than in this proportion, this makes no sensible change in the present question, because the body is broken before the compressions have gone so far; nay, we imagine that the compressed parts are crippled in most cases even before the extended parts are torn asunder Muschenbroeck asserts this with great confidence with respect to oak, on the authority of his own experiments. He says, that although oak will suspend half as much again as fir, it will not support, as a pillar, two thirds of the load which fir will support in that form.

We imagine therefore that the mechanism in the present case is nearly as follows:

Let the beam DCK∆ (fig. 21) be loaded at its extremity with the weight P, acting in the direction KP perpendicular to DC. Let D∆ be the section of fracture. Let DA be about one third of D∆. A will be the particle or fibre which is neither extended nor compressed. Make ∆δ = D d = DA: A∆. The triangles DA d , ∆Aδ, will represent the accumulated attracting and repelling forces. Make AI and A i = 1 / 3 DA and 1 / 3 ∆A. The point I will be that to which the full cohesion D d or f of the particles in AD must be applied, so as to produce the same momentum which the variable forces at I, D, &c. really produce at their several points of application. In like manner, i is the circle of similar effort of the repulsive forces excited by the compression between A and Δ, and it is the real fulcrum of a bended lever I i K, by which the whole effect is produced. The effect is the same as if the full cohesion of the stretched fibres in AD were accumulated in I, and the full repulsion of all the compressed fibres in A∆ were accumulated in i . The forces which are balanced in the operation are the weight P, acting by the arm ki, and the full cohesion of AD acting by the arm It. The forces exerted by the compressed fibres between A and Δ only serve to give support to the lever, that it may exert its strain.

We imagine that this does not differ much from the real procedure of nature. The position of the point A may be different from what we have deduced from Buffon’s experiments, compared with Muschenbroeck’s value of the absolute cohesion of a square inch. If this last should be only 12,000, DA must be greater than we have here made it, in the proportion of 12,000 to 16,000. For It must still be made = 1 / 3 A∆, supposing the forces to be proportional to the extensions and compressions. There can be no doubt that a part only of the cohesion of D∆ operates in resisting the fracture in all substances which have any compressibility; and it is confirmed by the experiments of Μ. Duhamel on willow, and the inferences are by no means confined to that species of timber. We say, therefore, that when the beam is broken, the cohesion of AD alone is exerted, and that each fibre exerts a force proportional to its extension; and the accumulated momentum is the same as if the full cohesion of AD were acting by the lever It = 1 / 3 d of D∆.

It may be said, that if only one third of the cohesion of oak be exerted, it may be cut two thirds through without weakening it. But this cannot be, because the cohesion of the whole is employed in preventing the lateral slide so often mentioned. We have no experiments to determine that it may not be cut through one third without loss of its strength.

This must not be considered as a subject of mere speculative curiosity. It is intimately connected with all the practical uses which we can make of this knowledge; for it is almost the only way that we can learn the compressibility of timber. Experiments on the direct cohesion are indeed difficult, and exceedingly expensive if we attempt them in large pieces. But experiments on compression are almost impracticable. The most instructive experiments would be, first to establish, by a great number of trials, the transverse force of a moderate batten; and then to make a great number of trials of the diminution of its strength, by cutting it through on the concave side. This would very nearly give us the proportion of the cohesion which really operates in resisting fractures. Thus if it be found that one half of the beam may be cut on the under side without diminution of its strength (taking care to drive in a slice of harder wood), we may conclude that the point A is at the middle, or somewhat above it.

Much lies before the curious mechanician, and we are as yet very far from a scientific knowledge of the strength of timber.

In the mean time, we may derive from these experiments of Buffon a very useful practical rule, without relying on any value of the absolute cohesion of oak. We see that the strength is nearly as the breadth, as the square of the depth, and as the inverse of the length, it is most convenient to measure the breadth and depth of the beam in inches, and its length in feet. Since, then, a beam four inches square and seven feet between the supports is broken by 5312 pounds, we must conclude that a batten one inch square and one foot between the supports will be broken by 581 pounds. Then the strength of any other beam of oak, or the weight which will just break it when hung on bd 2 its middle, is 581 -y.

But we have seen that there is a very considerable deviation from the inverse proportion of the lengths, and we must endeavour to accommodate our ride to this deviation. We found, that by adding 1245 to each of the ordinates or numbers in the column of the five-inch bars, we had a set of numbers very nearly reciprocal of the lengths; and if we make a similar addition to the other columns in the proportion of the cubes of the sixes, we have nearly the same result. The greatest error (except in the case of experiments which are very irregular) does not exceed 1 / 15 th of the whole. Therefore, for a radical number, add to the 5312 the number 640, which is to 1245 very nearly as 4 3 to 5 3 . This gives 5952. The 64th of this is 93, which corresponds to a bar of one inch square and seven feet long. Therefore 93 × 7 will be the reciprocal corresponding to a bar of one foot. This is 651. Take from this the present empirical correction, which is b40 / b4 , or 10, and there remains 641 for the strength of the bar. This gives us for a general rule p — 651 — 10 bd?. Example. Required the weight necessary to break an oak beam eight inches square and twenty feet between the props, p = 651 × — ×θ 10 × 8 × 8 t . This is 11,545, whereas the experiment gives 11,487. The error is very small indeed. The rule is most deficient in comparison with the five-inch bars, which, we have already said, appear stronger than the rest.

The following process is easily remembered by such as are not algebraists.

Multiply the breadth in inches twice by the depth, and[7:20:777] call this product f Multiply f by 651, and divide by the length in feet. From the quotient take 10 times f . The remainder is the number of pounds which will break the beam.

We are not sufficiently sensible of our principles to be confident that the correction 10 f should be in the proportion of the section, although we think it most probable. It is quite empirical, founded on Buffon’s experiments. Therefore the safe way of using this rule is to suppose the beam square, by increasing or diminishing its breadth till equal to the depth. Then find the strength by this rule, and diminish or increase it for the change which has been made in its breadth. Thus, there can be no doubt that the strength of the beam given as an example is double of that of a beam of the same depth and half the breadth.

The reader cannot but observe that all this calculation relates to the very greatest weight which a beam will bear for a very few minutes. Μ. Buffon uniformly found that two thirds of this weight sensibly impaired its strength, and frequently broke at the end of two or three months. One half of this weight brought the beam to a certain bend, which did not increase after the first minute or two, and may be borne by the beam for any length of time. But the beam contracted a bend, of which it did not recover any considerable portion. One third seemed to have no permanent effect on the beam; but it recovered its rectilineal shape completely, even after having been loaded several months, provided that the timber was seasoned when first loaded; that is to say, one third of the weight which would quickly break a seasoned beam, or one fourth of what would break one just felled, may lie on it for ever without giving the beam a set.

We have no detail of experiments on the strength of other kinds of timber: only Μ. Buffon says, that fir has about 6 / 10 ths of the strength of oak; Mr Parent makes it 10 / 12 ths; Emerson, 2 / 3 ds, &c.

We have been thus minute in our examination of the mechanism of this transverse strain, because it is the greatest to which the parts of our machines are exposed. We wish to impress on the minds of artists the necessity of avoiding this as much as possible. They are improving in this respect, as may be seen by comparing the centres on which stone arches of great span are now turned with those of former times. They were formerly a load of mere joists resting on a multitude of posts, which obstructed the navigation, and were frequently losing their shape by some of the posts sinking into the ground. Now they are more generally trusses, where the beams abut on each other, and are relieved from transverse strains. But many performances of eminent artists are still very injudiciously exposed to cross strains. We may instance one which is considered as a fine work, viz. the bridge at Walton on Thames. Here every beam of the great arch is a joist, and it hangs together by framing. The finest piece of carpentry that we have seen is the centre employed in turning the arches of the bridge at Orleans, described by Perronet. In the whole there is not one cross strain. The beam, too, of Hornblower’s steam-engine is very scientifically constructed.

IV. The last species of strain which we are to examine is that produced by twisting. This takes place in all axles which connect the working parts of machines.

Although we cannot pretend to have a very distinct conception of that modification of the cohesion of a body by which it resists this kind of strain, we can have no doubt that, when all the particles act alike, the resistance must be proportional to the number. Therefore if we suppose the two parts ABCD, ABFE (fig. 22), of the body EFCD to be of insuperable strength, but cohering more weakly in the common surface

AB, and that one part ABCD is pushed laterally in the direction AB, there can be no doubt that it will yield only there, and that the resistance will be proportional to the surface.

In like manner, we can conceive a thin cylindrical tube, of which KAH (fig. 23) is the section, as cohering more weakly in that section than anywhere else. Suppose it to be grasped in both hands, and the two parts twisted round the axis in opposite directions, as we would twist the joints of a flute; it is plain that it will first fail in this section, which is the circumference of a circle, and the particles of the two parts which are contiguous to this circumference will be drawn from each other laterally. The total resistance will be as the number of equally resisting particles, that is, as the circumference (for the tube being supposed very thin, there can be no sensible difference between the dilatation of the external and internal particles). We can now suppose another tube within this, and a third within the second, and so on till we reach the centre. If the particles of each ring exerted the same force (by suffering the same dilatation in the direction of the circumference), the resistance of each ring of the section would be as its circumference and its breadth (supposed indefinitely smalD, and the whole resistance would be as the surface; and this would represent the resistance of a solid cylinder. But when a cylinder is twisted in this manner by an external force applied to its circumference, the external parts will suffer a greater circular extension than the internal; and it appears that this extension (like the extension of a beam strained transversely) will be proportional to the distance of the particles from the axis. We cannot say that this is demonstrable, but we can assign no proportion that is more probable. This being the case, the forces simultaneously exerted by each particle will be as its distance from the axis. Therefore the whole force exerted by each ring will be as the square of its radius, and the accumulated force actually exerted will be as the cube of the radius; that is, the accumulated force exerted by the whole cylinder, whose radius is CA, is to the accumulated force exerted at the same time by the part whose radius is CE, as CA 3 to CE 3 .

The whole cohesion now exerted is just two thirds of what it would be if all the particles were exerting the same attractive forces which are just now exerted by the particles in the external circumference. This is plain to any person in the least familiar with the fluxionary calculus. But such as are not may easily see it in this way.

Let the rectangle AC ca be set upright on the surface of the circle along the line CA, and revolve round the axis Cc. It will generate a cylinder whose height is C c or A♯, and having the circle KAH for its base. If the diagonal C a be supposed also to revolve, it is plain that the triangle cCa will generate a cone of the same height, and having for its base the circle described by the revolution of ca, and the point C for its apex. The cylindrical surface generated by Aa will express the whole cohesion exerted by the circumference AHK, and the cylindrical surface generated by Ee will represent the cohesion exerted by the circumference ELM, and the solid generated by the triangle CAa will represent the cohesion exerted by the whole circle AHK, and the cylinder generated by the rectangle ACca will represent the cohesion exerted by the same surface if each particle had suffered the extension Aa.

Now it is plain, in the first place, that the solid generated by the triangle eEC is to that generated by aAC as EC 3 to[7:20:778] AC’. In the next place, the solid generated by aAC is two thirds of the cylinder, because the cone generated by cCa is one third of it.

We may now suppose the cylinder twisted till the particles in the external circumference lose their cohesion. There can be no doubt that it will now be wrenched asunder, all the inner circles yielding in succession. Thus we obtain one useful information, viz. that a body of homogeneous texture resists a simple twist with two thirds of the force with which it resists an attempt to force one part laterally from the other, or with one-third part of the force which will cut it asunder by a square-edged tool; for to drive a square-edged tool through a piece of lead, for instance, is the same as forcing a piece of the lead as thick as the tool laterally away from the two pieces on each side of the tool. Experiments of this kind do not seem difficult, and they would give us very useful information.

When two cylinders AHK and BNO are wrenched asunder, we must conclude that the external particles of each are just put beyond their limits of cohesion, are equally extended, and are exerting equal forces. Hence it follows, that in the instant of fracture the sum-total of the forces actually exerted are as the squares of the diameters.

For drawing the diagonal C e , it is plain that Ee = A a expresses the distension of the circumference ELM, and that the solid generated by the triangle CEe expresses the cohesion exerted by the surface of the circle ELM, when the particles in the circumference suffer the extension Ee equal to A a . Now the solids generated by CA a and CEe being respectively two thirds of the corresponding cylinders, are as the squares of the diameters.

Having thus ascertained the real strength of the section, and its relation to its absolute lateral strength, let us examine its strength relative to the external force employed to break it. This examination is very simple in the case under consideration. The straining force must act by some lever, and the cohesion must oppose it by acting on some other lever. The centre of the section may be the neutral point, whose position is not disturbed.

Let F be the force exerted laterally by an exterior particle. Let a be the radius of the cylinder, and x the indeterminate distance of any circumference, and dx the indefinitely small interval between the concentric arches; that is, let dx be the breadth of a ring and x its radius. The forces being as the extensions, and the extensions as the distances from the axis, the cohesion actually exerted at any part of any ring will be f xdx / a . The force exerted by the whole ring (being as the circumference or as the radius) will be ’ t∕,t f The momentum of cohesion of a ring, being as nc^dx the force multiplied by its lever, will be f~^~∙ The accu-

x i dx mulated momentum will be the sum or fluent off; a a ’ that is, when x = a, it will be }/— = if ’ t ’ ∙

Hence we learn that the strength of an axle, by which it resists being wrenched asunder by a force acting at a given distance from the axis, is as the cube of its diameter.

But, further, ⅛fa 3 is =∕α ’ × J a. Now fa 2 represents the full lateral cohesion of the section. The momentum therefore is the same as if the full lateral cohesion were accumulated at a point distant from the axis by one fourth of the radius, or one eighth of the diameter of the cylinder.

Therefore let F be the number of pounds which measure the lateral cohesion of a circular inch, d the diameter of the cylinder in inches, and l the length of the lever by which the straining force p is supposed to act; we shall have F ×⅜d3=pZ,andF≤=p.

We see in general that the strength of an axle, by which it resists being wrenched asunder by twisting, is as the cube of its diameter.

We see also that the internal parts are not acting so powerfully as the external. If a hole be bored out of the axle of half its diameter, the strength is diminished only one eighth, while the quantity of matter is diminished one fourth. Therefore hollow axles are stronger than solid ones containing the same quantity of matter. Thus let the diameter be 5, and that of the hollow 4; then the diameter of another solid cylinder having the same quantity of matter with the tube is 3. The strength of the solid cylinder of the diameter 5 may be expressed by 5 3 , or 125. Of this the internal part (of the diameter 4) exerts 64; therefore the strength of the tube is 125—64 = 61. But the strength of the solid axle of the same quantity of matter and diameter 3 is 3 3 , or 27, which is not half of that of the tube.

Engineers, therefore, have of late introduced this improvement in their machines, and the axles of cast iron are all made hollow when their size will admit of it. They have the additional advantage of being much stiffer, and of affording much better fixture for the flanches which are used for connecting them with the wheels or levers by which they are turned and strained. The superiority of strength of hollow tubes over solid cylinders is much greater in this kind of strain than in the former or transverse. In this last case the strength of this tube would be to that of the solid cylinder of equal weight as 61 to 32 and a half nearly.

The apparatus which we mentioned on a former occasion for trying the lateral strength of a square inch of solid matter, enabled us to try this theory of twist with all desirable accuracy. The bar which hung down from the pin in the former trials was now placed in a horizontal position, and loaded with a weight at the extremity. Thus it acted as a powerful lever, and enabled us to wrench asunder specimens of the strongest materials. We found the results perfectly conformable to the theory, in as far as it determined the proportional strength of different sizes and forms; but we found the ratio of the resistance to twisting to the simple lateral resistance considerably different, and it was some time before we discovered the cause.

We had here taken the simplest view that is possible of the action of cohesion in resisting a twist. It is frequently exerted in a very different way. When, for instance, an iron axle is joined to a wooden one by being driven into one end of it, the extensions of the different circles of particles are in a very different proportion. A little consideration will show that the particles in immediate contact with the iron axle are in a state of violent extension; so are the particles of the exterior surface of the wooden part, and the intermediate parts are less strained. It is almost impossible to assign the exact proportion of the cohesive forces exerted in the different parts. Numberless cases can be pointed out where parts of the axle are in a state of compression, and where it is still more difficult to determine the state of the other particles. We must content ourselves with the deductions made from this simple case, which is fortunately the most common. In the experiments just now mentioned, the centre of the circle is by no means the neutral point, and it is very difficult to ascertain its place; but when this consideration occurred to us, we easily freed the experiments from this uncertainty, by extending the lever to both sides, and by means of a pulley applied equal force to each arm, acting in opposite directions. Thus the centre became the neutral point, and the resistance to twist was found to be two thirds of the simple lateral strength.

We beg leave to mention here, that our success in these[7:20:779] experiments encouraged us to extend them much farther. We hoped by these means to discover the absolute cohesion of many substances, which would have required an enormous apparatus and a most unmanageable force to tear them asunder directly. But we could reason with confidence from the resistance to twist (which we could easily measure), provided that we could ascertain the proportion of the direct and the lateral strengths. Our experiments on chalk, finely prepared clay, and white bee’s wax (of one melting and one temperature), were very consistent and satisfactory. But we have hitherto found great irregularities in this proportion in bodies of a fibrous texture like timber. These are the most important cases, and we still hope to be able to accomplish our project, and to give the public some valuable information. This being our sole object, it was our duty to mention the method which promises success, and thus excite others to the task; and it will be no mortification to us to be deprived of the honour of being the first who thus adds to the stock of experimental knowledge.

When the matter of the axle is of the most simple texture, such as that of metals, we do not conceive that the length of the axle has any influence on the fracture. It is otherwise if it be of a fibrous texture like timber; the fibres are bent before breaking, being twisted into spirals like a cork-screw. The length of the axle has somewhat of the influence of a lever in this case, and it is easier wrenched asunder if long. Accordingly we have found it so; but we have not been able to reduce this influence to calculation.

Many useful deductions might be made from these premises respecting the manner of disposing and combining the strength of materials in our structures. The best form of joints, mortises, tenons, scarphs, the rules for joggling, tabling, faying, fishing, &c. practised in the delicate art of mast-making, arc all founded on this doctrine; but the discussion of these would be equivalent to writing a complete treatise of carpentry. (b. b. b.)

The most recent experiments on the strength and elasticity of material give the results entered in the following tables.

Table I.— Distensions of Pods for a Strain of one Pound per Square Inch; computed from the results given in Tredgold, edition of 1840, as deduced from observations on transverse strain.

British timber......{Oak ........ 1 / 22000

Larch............................ 1 / 36000

Scotch fir 1 / 80000

Ash 1 / 120000

Memel fir 1 / 75000

Norway fir 1 / 109000

American pine............. 1 / 50000

White spruce................ 1 / 92000

Riga oak 1 / 100000

American oak 1 / 100000

English malleable iron 1 / 24200000 Table II.— Cohesive Strengths of Bars per Square Inch. lbs. lbs.

Oak from 14,000 to 19,000

Beech from 11,000 to 22,000

Ash from 12,000 to 17,000

Elm from 13,000 to 14,000

Mahogany from 8,000 to 21,000

Teak from 8,000 to 15,000

Pine (Norway) from 7,000 to 14,000

Larch from 9,000 to 10,000

Iron wire from 94,000 to 113,000

Swedish iron from 53,000 to 78,000

English iron from 55,000 to 66,000

Cast iron from 16,000 to 33,000