The formation and stabilization of the emersed interface is dependent on the interplay of various hydrodynamic (viscosity, emersion velocity) and intermolecular forces (hydrogen bonding, dipole-dipole). In an effort to better define the role of these forces, manual-null ellipsometry has been used to investigate the effect of emersion velocity on the emersed layer thickness of water, methanol, acetonitrile, chloroform, 1-butanol, and 1-pentanol at self-assembled monolayers of 11-mercapto-1-undecanol (11-MUD) on polycrystalline Ag substrates. Emersed solvent layer thicknesses decrease as emersion velocity increases for water, methanol, acetonitrile, and chloroform. In contrast, the emersed layer thicknesses of 1-butanol and 1-pentanol remain relatively constant as the emersion velocity increases over the range of velocities accessible (0.0055-0.037 cm/s). These data suggest that the effect of emersion velocity on the resulting emersed layer thickness depends on the chemical and physical characteristics of the solvent. A descriptive model has been developed to describe the emersion process in terms of the interplay between hydrodynamic and intermolecular forces. According to this model, a shear plane develops at some distance away from the solid surface when the hydrodynamic forces are great enough to overcome the intermolecular forces between the liquid layers that behave as a Newtonian fluid at the molecular level.