Page:Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat.djvu/41

Rh of the work of which this initial paper of Carnot was the introductory, should study the contribution of Sir William Thomson to this development, as published in 1849,—a paper which constitutes that physicist the virtual discoverer of Carnot and the godfather of the man and his thoughts. This paper constitutes the final chapter of this little book.

From that time the additional progress so rapidly made in the new science was as inevitable as the development of a gold-field, once the precious metal has been found in paying quantities in the hitherto unvisited cañons and gorges of a distant and unexplored mountain-range. But great as is the work since done, and great as have been the discoveries and the discoverers of later years, none claims our gratitude and compels our respect in greater degree than does the original discoverer—