the funnel away----"

"Granted."

"Well, then, if by any method whatever I increase the volume of that
quantity of water by pouring in yet more through the mouth of the little
tube; the water thus compelled to flow downwards would rise in the
reservoir, represented by the flower-pot, until it reached the same
level at either end."

"That is quite clear," cried Raphael.

"But there is this difference," the other went on. "Suppose that the
thin column of water poured into the little vertical tube there exerts
a force equal, say, to a pound weight, for instance, its action will
be punctually communicated to the great body of the liquid, and will be
transmitted to every part of the surface represented by the water in the
flower-pot so that at the surface there will be a thousand columns of
water, every one pressing upwards as if they were impelled by a force
equal to that which compels the liquid to descend in the vertical tube;
and of necessity they reproduce here," said Planchette, indicating to
Raphael the top of the flower-pot, "the force introduced over there, a
thousand-fold," and the man of science pointed out to the marquis the
upright wooden pipe set in the clay.

"That is quite simple," said Raphael.

Planchette smiled again.

"In other words," he went on, with the mathematician's natural stubborn
propensity for logic, "in order to resist the force of the incoming
water, it would be necessary to exert, upon every part of the large
surface, a force equal to that brought into action in the vertical
column, but with this difference--if the column of liquid is a foot in
height, the thousand little columns of the wide surface will only have a
very slight elevating power.

"Now," said Planchette, as he gave a fillip to his bits of stick,
"let us replace this funny little apparatus by steel tubes of suitable
strength and dimensions; and if you cover the liquid surface of the
reservoir with a strong sliding plate of metal, and if to this metal
plate you oppose another, solid enough and strong enough to resist any
test; if, furthermore, you give me the power of continually adding water
to the volume of liquid contents by means of the little vertical tube,
the object fixed between the two solid metal plates must of necessity
yield to the tremendous crushing force which indefinitely compresses it.
The method of continually pouring in water through a little tube, like
the manner of communicating force through the vo