Publisher's Synopsis
From the Introduction.
The student of Electricity, and of the theory of attractions in general, is constantly meeting with and using volume-integrals and surface integrals; such integrals are the theme of the present tract. It is proposed, in the first instance, to examine how far it is justifiable to represent by such integrals the potential and other physical quantities associated with a body which is supposed to be of molecular structure, and, in the second place, to give proofs of certain mathematical properties of these integrals which there is a temptation to assume though they are not by any means as obvious as the assumption of them would imply. Illustrations will be taken for the most part from the theory of the Newtonian potential, and from Electricity and Magnetism; and attention will be directed, not to all the peculiarities of integrals which can be imagined by a pure mathematician, but only to those difficulties which constantly present themselves in the usual physical applications.
