Josiah Willard Gibbs (1878) "On the equilibrium of heterogeneous substances. Part II," Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 3 : 343-524. The equation for the energy that's required to create a surface between two phases appears on page 483. Reprinted in: Josiah Willard Gibbs with Henry Andrews Bumstead and Ralph Gibbs van Name, ed.s, The Scientific Papers of J. Willard Gibbs, ..., vol. 1, (New York, New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1906), page 315.