(258.) Again, we call Indian rubber a very elastic body, and so it is;
but in a different sense from steel. Its parts admit of great mutual
displacement without permanent dislocation; however distorted, it
recovers its figure readily, but with a small force. Yet, if Indian
rubber were to be enclosed in a space that it just filled, so as not to
permit its parts to yield laterally, doubtless it would resist actual
compression with great violence. Here, then, we have an instance
of two kinds of elasticity in one substance; a feebler effort of
recovery from distorted figure, and a more violent one from a state
of altered dimension. Both, however, originate in the same causes,
and are referable to the same principles; the former being in fact
only a modified case of the latter, as the effort of a steel spring,
when bent, to recover its former shape, is referable to the same
forces which give to steel its hardness and strength to resist actual
compression and fracture.
(259.) The toughness of a solid, or that quality by which it will
endure heavy blows without breaking, is again distinct from hardness
though often confounded with it. It consists in a certain yielding of
parts with a powerful general cohesion, and is compatible with various
degrees of elasticity. Malleability is again another quality of solids,
especially metals, quite distinct from toughness, and depends on their
capability of being deprived of their figure without an effort to
recover it and without fracture.
(260.) Tenacity, again, is a property of solids more directly depending
on the cohesion of their parts than toughness. It consists in their
power of resisting separation by a strain steadily applied, while the
quality of toughness is materially influenced by their disposition
to communicate through their substance the jarring effect of a
blow. Accordingly, the tenacity of a solid is a direct measure of
the cohesive attraction of its parts, and is the best proof of the
existence of such a power.
_Crystallography._
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