Savart (" Memoire sur la constitution des veines liquides lancees par des orifices circulaires en minces parois," Ann.
Savart showed, by a suitable isolation of the reservoir from tremors, whether due to external sources or to the impact of the jet itself in the vessel placed to receive it.
Two laws were formulated by Savart with respect to the length of the continuous portion of a jet, and have been to a certain extent explained by Plateau.
When the head is given, Savart found the length to be proportional to the diameter of the orifice.
The pitch of the note, though not absolutely definite, cannot differ much from that which corresponds to the division of the jet into wave-lengths of maximum instability; and, in fact, Savart found that the frequency was directly as the square root of the head, inversely as the diameter of the orifice, and independent of the nature of the fluid - laws which follow immediately from Plateau's theory.
Reasoning from some observations of Savart, Plateau finds in this way 4.38 as the ratio of the length of a division to the diameter of the jet.
With respect to the limits of pitch, Savart found that the note might be a fifth above, and more than an octave below, that proper to the jet.
Even when the resolution is regularized by the action of external vibrations of suitable frequency, as in the beautiful experiments of Savart and Plateau, the drops must still come into contact before they reach the summit of their parabolic path.