Page:Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat.djvu/28

6 it has been thought wise to reproduce with the translation of Carnot's book. In making the translation, also, this later text has been followed; and now, for the first time, so far as is known to the writer, the work of Carnot is made accessible to the reader in English.

The original manuscript of Carnot has been deposited by his brother in the archives of the French Academy of Sciences, and thus insured perpetual care. The work of Carnot includes not only the treatise which it is the principal object of this translation to give to our readers, but also a considerable amount of hitherto unpublished matter which has been printed by his brother, with the new edition of the book, as illustrative of the breadth and acuteness of the mind of the Founder of the Science of Thermodynamics.

These previously unpublished materials consist of memoranda relating to the specific heats of substances, their variations, and various other facts and data, and principles as well; some of which are now recognized as essential elements of the new science, even of its fundamental part. The book is particularly rich in what have been generally supposed to be the discoveries of later writers, and in enunciations of principles now recognized as those forming the base and the