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Updated: June 25, 2025
When, however, the waves tumble on a sandy coast, they make but a muffled sound, and produce no mud. In fact, the particles of sand do not touch each other when they receive the blow. Between them there lies a thin film of water, drawn in by the attraction known as capillarity, which sucks the fluid into a sponge or between plates of glass placed near together.
"It is true," said Percy, "that soluble salts are brought to the surface in the rise of moisture by capillarity in times of partial drouth; and in the arid regions where the small amount of water that falls in rain or snow leaves the soil only by evaporation, because there is never enough to produce underdrainage, the salts tend to accumulate at the surface.
It is necessary rather to know the composition of the substances in question the geological strata, the atmospheric actions, the quality of the soil, the minerals, the waters, the density of the different bodies, their capillarity, and what not.
Such experiments are very delicate; and with all the precautions taken by the author, it cannot yet be asserted that he has removed all possibility of the action of the phenomena of capillarity nor all possible errors proceeding from extremely slight differences of temperature. But the attempt is interesting and deserves to be followed up.
THE GROUND-WATER SURFACE is the name given the upper surface of ground water, the level below which all rocks are saturated. In dry seasons the ground-water surface sinks. For ground water is constantly seeping downward under gravity, it is evaporated in the waste and its moisture is carried upward by capillarity and the roots of plants to the surface to be evaporated in the air.
If the soil should be a free loam and the capillarity therefore somewhat reduced, orange trees would probably be permanently productive. If the soil were very heavy, capillary rise might be too energetic and saturate the soil for some distance above the water-level. In a free soil without this danger the roots could approach the water as they find it desirable and be permanently supplied.
The main difficulty he shows to be thermo-dynamical; and calculating the rate of increase in the elastic force of steam on descending to greater and greater depths and reaching strata of higher and higher temperatures, as compared with the force of capillarity, he comes to the conclusion that water cannot penetrate to depths of more than seven or eight miles, and therefore cannot reach the seat of the eruptive forces.
I have seen boys about the streets, who are very anxious to appear like men, take a piece of cane, and light it and smoke it, as an imitation of a cigar. They are enabled to do so by the permeability of the cane in one direction, and by its capillarity. There being no pores at the side, the fluid cannot go in that direction, but must pass through its length.
But in humid sections where more or less of the rainfall leaves the soil as underdrainage the regular loss by leaching is so much in excess of the rise by capillarity that soils which are not affected by erosion or overflow steadily decrease in fertility even under natural conditions, with no cultivation and no removal of crops.
The word capillarity is of Latin derivation, and signifies hair-like slenderness. The smaller the tube, or the nearer the edges of a vessel are brought together, the higher in proportion will the liquid rise above the level. An ascent of a liquid, due to capillarity, also takes place, where the liquid is placed between two separate bodies, as oil placed between two pieces of flat glass.
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