This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1898 Excerpt: ...of facts. He suggested that condensation might take place under and through a superheated layer of the kind if the vapour near the metal surface consisted, like a gas, of molecules having velocities differing widely among themselves, through having a definite average energy, and that the surface of condensation selected the slowmoving molecules for absorption into itself in a marked manner. A room full of flies could be imagined, some active, others lazy, the walls papered with sticky fly-catcher, which captured the lazy flies near them so quickly that an observer near the wall would find that the flies in the air there were nearly all moving quickly. If the flies were considered as steam molecules, and the fly-catching paper cold metal, the description applied 1 Report of the...