Page:Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat.djvu/142

120 (This fact is proved by what has already been stated.) Now we have seen how important it is to produce by change of volume the greatest possible changes of temperature.

(2) Vapors of water can be formed only through the intervention of a boiler, while atmospheric air could be heated directly by combustion carried on within its own mass. Considerable loss could thus be prevented, not only in the quantity of heat, but also in its temperature. This advantage belongs exclusively to atmospheric air. Other gases do not possess it. They would be even more difficult to heat than vapor of water.

(3) In order to give to air great increase of volume, and by that expansion to produce a great change of temperature, it must first be taken under a sufficiently high pressure; then it must be compressed with a pump or by some other means before heating it. This operation would require a special apparatus, an apparatus not found in steam-engines. In the latter, water is in a liquid state when injected into the boiler, and to introduce it requires but a small pump.

(4) The condensing of the vapor by contact with the refrigerant body is much more prompt and much easier than is the cooling of air. There might, of course, be the expedient of throwing the