16  ON THE EFFECT OF THE INTERNAL FRICTION OF FLUIDS
will be quite sufficient to regard the motion as already going on, and limit the calculation to the determination of the simultaneous periodic movements of the pendulum and the surrounding fluid. The arc of oscillation will go on slowly decreasing, hut it will be so nearly constant for several successive oscillations that it may be regarded as strictly such in calculating the motion of the fluid ; and having thus determined the resultant action of the fluid on the solid we may employ the result in calculating the decrement of the arc of oscillation, as well as in calculating the time of oscillation. Thus the assumption of periodic functions of the time in the expressions for u, v, w will take the place of the determination of certain arbitrary functions by means of the initial circumstances.
4. Imagine a plane drawn perpendicular to the axis of x through the point in the fluid whose co-ordinates are x, y, z. Let the oblique pressure in the direction of this plane be decomposed into three pressures, a normal pressure, which will be in the direction of #, and two tangential pressures in the directions of y, z, respectively. Let Pl be the normal pressure, and Ta the tangential pressure in the direction of y, which will be equal to the component in the direction of x of the oblique pressure on a plane drawn perpendicular to the axis of y. Then by the formulae (7), (8) of my former paper, and (3) of the present,
dv
These formulae will be required in finding the resultant force of the fluid on the pendulum, after the motion of the fluid has been determined in terms of the quantities by which the motion of the pendulum is expressed.
5. Before proceeding to the solution of the equations (2) and (3) in particular cases, it will be well to examine the general laws which follow merely from the dimensions of the several terms which appear in the equations.
Consider any number of similar systems, composed of similar solids oscillating in a similar manner in different fluids or in the same fluid. Let a, a, a"... be homologous lines in the different