proceeding to maintain it by a series of experimental reductio ad absurdum.
Premising that the temperature of a body could not be increased unless either its "capacity" were diminished from some cause, or heat were added to it from still other bodies in contact, and observing a production of heat to be consequent on friction or percussion, he enumerated the following as including all possible explanations of the phenomenon consistent with the assumption of caloric:
First, the production by the friction of a specific diminution in the "capacity" of the body, whereby caloric would be disengaged, and thus made sensible. This was the supposition which Count Rumford showed to be quite incompatible with the inexhaustibility of the supply.
Second, the liberation of caloric during some slow process of combustion accompanying the friction, the source in this case being the oxygen of the surrounding medium. This contingency was likewise anticipated by Rumford, who failed to detect any indications of such an action.
And, third, the production of some occult change in the bodies rubbed, whereby they might acquire the property of abstracting an unusual quantity of heat-substance from surrounding matter.
His argument against the existence of caloric depended, therefore, upon showing that these different suppositions were all contrary to the indications of experiment, whence the inference as to the untenability of the hypothesis itself. But, although this method of reasoning has been characterized as "somewhat confused," the following experiments upon which it was based are now considered classical.
Two parallelopipedons of ice, initially at a temperature of 29° Fahr., were fastened in an apparatus by which they might be rubbed together, and kept in a continued and violent friction with each other. They thus were almost wholly melted, the temperature of the resulting water being "ascertained to be 35°, after remaining in an atmosphere of a lower temperature for some minutes." The fusion also was observed to take place only at the rubbing surface.
From this experiment it was therefore to be inferred that the "capacity" of a body was not necessarily diminished by friction; for, according to the discoveries of Black, the melting of a quantity of ice could only take place with the absorption of a definite quantity of heat—its latent heat of fusion.
Upon the second supposition, Davy remarked:
"From this experiment it is likewise evident that the increase of temperature consequent on friction cannot arise from the decomposition of the oxygen gas in contact, for ice has no attraction for oxygen. Since the increase of temperature consequent on friction cannot arise from the diminution of capacity or oxidation of the acting bodies, the only remaining supposition is, that it arises from an absolute quantity of heat added to them, which heat must be attracted from the bodies in contact. Then friction must induce some change in bodies enabling them to attract heat from the bodies in contact."
