Page:On the various forces of nature and their relations to each other.djvu/80

76 steam. And exactly the same thing happens with platinum, and nearly every substance in nature; if the temperature is increased to a certain point, it becomes liquid, and a further increase converts it into a gas. Is it not a glorious thing for us to look at the sea, the rivers, and so forth, and to know that this same body in the northern regions is all solid ice and icebergs, while here, in a warmer climate, it has its attraction of cohesion so much diminished as to be liquid water. Well, in diminishing this force of attraction between the particles of ice, we made use of another force, namely, that of heat; and I want you now to understand that this force of heat is always concerned when water passes from the solid to the liquid state. If I melt ice in other ways, I cannot do without heat (for we have the means of making ice liquid without heat; that is to say, without using heat as a direct cause). Suppose, for illustration, I make a vessel out of this piece of tinfoil [bending the foil up into the shape of a dish]. I am making it metallic, because I want the heat which I am about to deal with to pass readily through it; and I am going