Page:Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat.djvu/84

62 When a gaseous fluid is rapidly compressed its temperature rises. It falls, on the contrary, when it is rapidly dilated. This is one of the facts best demonstrated by experiment. We will take it for the basis of our demonstration. If, when the temperature of a gas has been raised by compression, we wish to reduce it to its former temperature without subjecting its volume to new changes, some of its caloric must be removed. This caloric might have been removed in proportion as pressure was applied, so that the temperature of the gas would remain constant. Similarly, if the gas is rarefied we can avoid lowering the temperature by supplying it with a certain quantity of caloric. Let us call the caloric employed at such times, when no change of temperature occurs, caloric due to change of volume. This denomination does not indicate that the caloric appertains to the volume: it does not appertain to it any more than to pressure, and might as well be called caloric due to the change of pressure. We do not know what laws it follows relative to the variations of volume: it is possible that its quantity changes either with the nature of the gas, its density, or its temperature.