Page:Experimental researches in chemistry and.djvu/468

1857.] of research and discovery which arise from it. Heat,for instance, is a mighty form of power, and its effects have been greatly developed; therefore, assumptions regarding its nature become useful and necessary, and philosophers try to define it. The most probable assumption is, that it is a motion of the particles of matter; but a view, at one time very popular, is, that it consists of a particular fluid of heat. Whether it be viewed in one way or the other, the principle of conservation is admitted, I believe, with all its force. When transferred from one portion to another portion of like matter, the full amount of heat appears. When transferred to matter of another kind, an apparent excess or deficiency often results; the word "capacity" is then introduced, which, whilst it acknowledges the principle of conservation, leaves space for research. When employed in changing the state of bodies, the appearance and disappearance of the heat is provided for consistently by the assumption of enlarged or diminished motion, or else space is left by the term "capacity" for the partial views which remain to be developed. When converted into mechanical force, in the steam- or air-engine, and so brought into direct contact with gravity, being then easily placed in relation to it, still the conservation of force is fully respected and wonderfully sustained. The constant amount of heat developed in the whole of a voltaic current described by M. P. A. Favre, and the present state of the knowledge of thermo-electricity, are again fine partial or subordinate illustrations of the principle of conservation. Even when rendered radiant, and for the time giving no trace or signs of ordinary heat action, the assumptions regarding its nature have provided for the belief in the conservation of force, by admitting, either that it throws the ether into an equivalent state, in sustaining which for the time the power is engaged; or else, that the motion of the particles of heat is employed altogether in their own transit from place to place.

It is true that heat often becomes evident or insensible in a manner unknown to us; and we have a right to ask what is happening when the heat disappears in one part, as of the