Page:Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat.djvu/74

52 two bodies A and B, kept each at a constant temperature, that of A being higher than that of B. These two bodies, to which we can give or from which we can remove the heat without causing their temperatures to vary, exercise the functions of two unlimited reservoirs of caloric. We will call the first the furnace and the second the refrigerator.

If we wish to produce motive power by carrying a certain quantity of heat from the body A to the body B we shall proceed as follows:

(1) To borrow caloric from the body A to make steam with it—that is, to make this body fulfil the function of a furnace, or rather of the metal composing the boiler in ordinary engines—we here assume that the steam is produced at the same temperature as the body A.

(2) The steam having been received in a space capable of expansion, such as a cylinder furnished with a piston, to increase the volume of this space, and consequently also that of the steam. Thus rarefied, the temperature will fall spontaneously, as occurs with all elastic fluids; admit that the rarefaction may be continued to the point where the temperature becomes precisely that of the body B.

(3) To condense the steam by putting it in contact with the body B, and at the same time