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ON THE NATURAL FACULTIES Book I
PART 14
[p. 87]illustration afforded by corn?
The way that corn can attract moisture.
For those who refuse to admit that anything is attracted by anything else, will, I imagine, be here proved more ignorant regarding Nature than the very peasants. When, for my own part, I
first learned of what happens, I was surprised, and felt anxious to see it with my own eyes. Afterwards, when experience also had confirmed its truth, I sought long among the various sects for an explanation, and, with the exception of that which gave the first place to attraction, I could find none which even approached plausibility, all the others being ridiculous and obviously quite untenable.
What happens, then, is the following. When our peasants are bringing corn from the country into the city in wagons, and wish to filch some away without being detected, they fill earthen jars with water and stand them among the corn; the corn then draws the moisture into itself through the jar and acquires additional bulk and weight, but the fact is never detected by the onlookers unless someone who knew about the trick before makes a more careful inspection. Yet, if you care to set down the same vessel in the very hot sun, you will find the daily loss to be very little indeed. Thus corn has a greater power than extreme solar heat of drawing to itself the moisture in its neighbourhood.
Specific attraction of the "proper" quality; cfr. p. 85, note 3.
Thus the
theory that the water is carried towards the rarefied part of the air surrounding us
Theory of evaporation insufficient to account for it. cf. p. 104, note 1.
(particularly when that is distinctly warm) is utter nonsense; for although it is