Page:Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat.djvu/245

Rh to see if steam is liquefied in the pipe; to see whether it comes out cloudy or transparent.)

(4) The elevation of temperature which takes place at the time of the entrance of the air into the vacuum, an elevation that cannot be attributed to the compression of the air remaining (air which may be replaced by steam), can therefore be attributed only to the friction of the air against the walls of the opening, or against the interior of the receiver, or against itself.

(5) M. Gay-Lussac showed (it is said) that if two receivers were put in communication with each other, the one a vacuum, the other full of air, the temperature would rise in one as much as it would fall in the other. If, then, both be compressed one half, the first would return to its previous temperature and the second to a much higher one. Mixing them, the whole mass would be heated.

When the air enters a vacuum, its passage through one small opening and the motion imparted to it in the interior appear to produce elevation of temperature.

We may be allowed to express here an hypothesis in regard to the nature of heat.

At present, light is generally regarded as the