assigned to them their true significance, and, reviewing much after Bacon the existing state of experience upon the question, drew forcibly attention to the superficiality of the views of those who still adopted the hypothesis of caloric.
In 1810 Haldat performed an extended series of experiments upon the heat produced by friction between various metallic surfaces.[1] The results which he obtained were not, however, decidedly confirmatory of either supposition, but especially serve to increase our admiration for the acumen of Rumford in perceiving and stating the true law of its excitation.
The rubbing surfaces employed by him were similar in size and shape; the pressure between them was maintained nearly constant in several different experiments; but the power or energy was received in measured quantities, and from an indefinite source, namely, the pulley of a turning-lathe.
The quantities of heat developed for the same number of revolutions, or in proportionate times, were naturally, therefore, different for different metals; but as to the cause of this diversity he hazarded no positive opinion, and indeed his recorded observations do not seem susceptible of reduction to any particular theory. Had he measured the energy absorbed, or the coefficient of friction between the rubbing surfaces, he might possibly have been able to trace some relation between them and the heat produced in the operation. As it was, his observations as to difference of capacity, the influence of density, etc., were equally confused with the results, which he obtained on varying the pressure and substituting different metals; and although upon the whole his conclusions were adverse to the calorists, they were not definite enough to attract any notable attention.
In tracing thus far the inception of mechanical-heat theory, we have seen two important generalizations made: The one, fully attested by experiment, referring to the transformation of work into heat in a peculiar class of operations, and entirely independent of hypothesis, namely, that "the heat generated by friction is exactly proportional to the force with which the two surfaces are pressed together, and to the rapidity of the friction." The other, more comprehensive, including in the spirit of its enunciation thermal phenomena of every variety, and to a greater or less extent dependent on molecular and other hypothesis. These early statements are quite characteristic of, and may be used to illustrate, a subsequent division of our subject necessitated by experimental difficulties of investigation and verification.
The proposition that the entire energy existing in the universe is a magnitude as definite and unchangeable as the quantity of matter which it contains, is now considered one of the most fundamental and far-reaching in natural philosophy. The experimental evidence pos-
- ↑ Journal de Physique, vol. lxv., p. 213; Nicholson's Journal, vol. xxvi., p. 30.
