Abstract
IT would seem difficult to discover any new properties in a substance so familiar as cork, and yet it possesses qualities which distinguish it from all other solid or liquid bodies, namely, its power of altering its volume in a very marked degree in consequence of change of pressure. All liquids and solids are capable of cubical compression, or extension, but to a very small extent; thus water is reduced in volume by only 1/2000 part by the pressure of one atmosphere. Liquid carbonic acid yields to pressure much more than any other fluid, but still the rate is very small. Solid substances, with the exception of cork, offer equally obstinate resistance to change of bulk; even india-rubber, which most people would suppose capable of very considerable change of volume, we shall find is really very rigid.
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On New Applications of the Mechanical Properties of Cork to the Arts 1 . Nature 34, 181–185 (1886). https://doi.org/10.1038/034181a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/034181a0