experiment. In 1849 he presented to the Royal Society a memoir which, together with a history of the subject, contained details of a long series of determinations, the result of which was 772. A good many years later he was entrusted by the committee of the British Association on standards of electric resistance with the task of deducing the mechanical equivalent of heat from the thermal effects of electric currents. This inquiry yielded (in 1867) the result 783, and this Joule himself was inclined to regard as more accurate than his old determination by the frictional method; the latter, however, was repeated with every precaution, and again indicated 772.55 foot-pounds as the quantity of work that must be expended at sea-level in the latitude of Greenwich in order to raise the temperature of one pound of water, weighed in vacuo, from 60° to 61° F. Ultimately the discrepancy was traced to an error which, not by Joule’s fault, vitiated the determination by the electrical method, for it was found that the standard ohm, as actually defined by the British Association committee and as used by him, was slightly smaller than was intended; when the necessary corrections were made the results of the two methods were almost precisely congruent, and thus the figure 772.55 was vindicated. In addition, numerous other researches stand to Joule’s credit—the work done in compressing gases and the thermal changes they undergo when forced under pressure through small apertures (with Lord Kelvin), the change of volume on solution, the change of temperature produced by the longitudinal extension and compression of solids, &c. It was during the experiments involved by the first of these inquiries that Joule was incidentally led to appreciate the value of surface condensation in increasing the efficiency of the steam engine. A new form of condenser was tested on the small engine employed, and the results it yielded formed the starting-point of a series of investigations which were aided by a special grant from the Royal Society, and were described in an elaborate memoir presented to it on the 13th of December 1860. His results, according to Kelvin, led directly and speedily to the present practical method of surface-condensation, one of the most important improvements of the steam engine, especially for marine use, since the days of James Watt. Joule died at Sale on the 11th of October 1889.
His scientific papers were collected and published by the Physical Society of London: the first volume, which appeared in 1884, contained the researches for which he was alone responsible, and the second, dated 1887, those which he carried out in association with other workers.
JOURDAN, JEAN BAPTISTE, Count (1762–1833), marshal of
France, was born at Limoges on the 29th of April 1762, and in his
boyhood was apprenticed to a silk merchant of Lyons. In 1776
he enlisted in a French regiment to serve in the American War
of Independence, and after being invalided in 1784 he married
and set up in business at Limoges. At the outbreak of the
revolutionary wars he volunteered, and as a subaltern took part
in the first campaigns in the north of France. His rise was even
more rapid than that of Hoche and Marceau. By 1793 he had
become a general of division, and was selected by Carnot to
succeed Houchard as commander-in-chief of the Army of the
North; and on the 15th–16th of October 1793 he won the brilliant
and important victory of Wattignies (see French Revolutionary Wars). Soon afterwards he became a “suspect,” the moderation of his political opinions and his misgivings as to the
future conduct of the war being equally distasteful to the truculent
and enthusiastic Committee of Public Safety. Warned
in time by his friend Carnot and by Barère, he avoided arrest and
resumed his business as a silk-mercer in Limoges. He was soon
reinstated, and early in 1794 was appointed commander-in-chief
of the Army of Sambre-et-Meuse. After repeated attempts to
force the passage of the Sambre had failed and several severe
general actions had been fought without result, Jourdan and his
army were discouraged, but Carnot and the civil commissioners
urged the general, even with threats, to a last effort, and this
time he was successful not only in crossing the Sambre but in
winning a brilliant victory at Fleurus (June 26, 1794), the
consequence of which was the extension of the French sphere
of influence to the Rhine, on which river he waged an indecisive
campaign in 1795.
In 1796 his army formed the left wing of the advance into Bavaria. The whole of the French forces were ordered to advance on Vienna, Jourdan on the extreme left and Moreau in the centre by the Danube valley, Bonaparte on the right by Italy and Styria. The campaign began brilliantly, the Austrians under the Archduke Charles being driven back by Moreau and Jourdan almost to the Austrian frontier. But the archduke, slipping away from Moreau, threw his whole weight on Jourdan, who was defeated at Amberg and Würzburg, and forced over the Rhine after a severe rearguard action, which cost the life of Marceau. Moreau had to fall back in turn, and, apart from Bonaparte’s marvellous campaign in Italy, the operations of the year were disastrous. The chief cause of failure was the vicious plan of campaign imposed upon the generals by their government. Jourdan was nevertheless made the scapegoat of the government’s mistakes and was not employed for two years. In those years he became prominent as a politician and above all as the framer of the famous conscription law of 1798. When the war was renewed in 1799 Jourdan was placed at the head of the army on the Rhine, but again underwent defeat at the hands of the archduke Charles at Stockach (March 25), and, disappointed and broken in health, handed over the command to Masséna. He at once resumed his political duties, and was a prominent opponent of the coup d’état of 18 Brumaire, after which he was expelled from the Council of the Five Hundred. Soon, however, he became formally reconciled to the new régime, and accepted from Napoleon fresh military and civil employment. In 1800 he became inspector-general of cavalry and infantry and representative of French interests in the Cisalpine Republic, and in 1804 he was made a marshal of France. He remained in the new kingdom of Italy until 1806, when Joseph Bonaparte, whom his brother made king of Naples in that year, selected Jourdan as his military adviser. He followed Joseph into Spain in the same capacity in 1808. But Joseph’s throne had to be maintained by the French army, and throughout the Peninsular War the other marshals, who depended directly upon Napoleon, paid little heed either to Joseph or to Jourdan. After the battle of Vitoria he held no important command up to the fall of the Empire. Jourdan gave in his adhesion to the restoration government of 1814, and though he rejoined Napoleon in the Hundred Days and commanded a minor army, he submitted to the Bourbons again after Waterloo. He refused, however, to be a member of the court which tried Marshal Ney. He was made a count, a peer of France (1819), and governor of Grenoble (1816). In politics he was a prominent opponent of the royalist reactionaries and supported the revolution of 1830. After this event he held the portfolio of foreign affairs for a few days, and then became governor of the Invalides, where his last years were spent. Marshal Jourdan died on the 23rd of November 1833, and was buried in the Invalides.
He wrote Opérations de l’armée du Danube (1799); Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire sur la campagne de 1796 (1819); and unpublished personal memoirs.
JOURNAL (through Fr. from late Lat. diurnalis, daily), a daily
record of events or business. A private journal is usually an
elaborated diary. When applied to a newspaper or other
periodical the word is strictly used of one published each day;
but any publication issued at stated intervals, such as a magazine
or the record of the transactions of a learned society, is commonly
called a journal. The word “journalist” for one whose business
is writing for the public press (see Newspapers) seems to be as
old as the end of the 17th century.
“Journal” is particularly applied to the record, day by day, of the business and proceedings of a public body. The journals of the British houses of parliament contain an official record of the business transacted day by day in either house. The record does not take note of speeches, though some of the earlier volumes contain references to them. The journals are a lengthened account written from the “votes and proceedings” (in the House of Lords called “minutes of the proceedings”), made day
