1861.] Conservation of Farce applied to Organic Nature. 351 



any exterior body must be constant ; that it cannot be lessened or 

 increased by any change. Now the whole universe represents such a 

 system of bodies endowed with different sorts of forces and of energy, 

 and therefore we conclude from the facts I have brought before you, 

 that the amount of working power, or the amount of energy in the 

 whole system of the universe must remain the same, quite steady and 

 unalterable, whatever changes may go on in the universe. If we 

 accept the hypothesis of Laplace, that in the first state the universe 

 was formed by a chaos of nebulous matter, spread out through infinite 

 space, then we must conclude, that at this time the only form of 

 energy existing in this system was the attraction of gravitation, and 

 it was therefore the same sort of energy as is possessed by a raised 

 weight. Afterwards, astronomers suppose, this nebulous matter was 

 conglomerated and aggregated to solid masses. Great quantities of 

 this nebulous matter, possibly from a great distance, fell together, and 

 thus their attraction, or the energy of their attraction was destroyed, 

 and hence heat must have been produced ; and the facts we know at 

 present are sufficient to enable us to calculate the amount of this heat, 

 that is, of the whole heat which must have been produced during the 

 whole process of conglomeration. This amount of heat is immensely 

 great, so that it surpasses all our ideas and all the limits of our 

 imagination. If we calculate this quantity of heat, and suppose that 

 the sun contained at the same time the whole heat, and that the sun 

 had the same specific heat as water, the sun would be heated to twenty- 

 eight millions of degrees, that is, to a temperature surpassing all 

 temperatures we know on earth ; however, this temperature could not 

 exist at any time in the sun, because the heat which was produced by 

 the aggregation of the masses, must also be spent partially by radiation 

 into space. I give only the result of these calculations, in order that 

 you may see from it what a great amount of heat could be produced 

 in this way. The same process goes on also at present in the falling stars 

 and meteors which come down to the earth from planetary spaces. 

 Their velocity is destroyed by the friction of the air and by the con- 

 cussion with the surface of the earth, and we see how they become 

 luminous, and if they are found on the earth, we find them hot. 



The sun also at present is hotter than any heated body here on the 

 earth. That is shown by the latest experiments made by Professors 

 KirchhofFand Bunsen, of Heidelberg, on the^spectrum of the sun, by 

 which it is proved, that in the atmosphere of the sun, iron and other 

 metals are contained as vapours which cannot be changed into vapours 

 by any amount of heat on the earth. 



Our earth contains a great amount of energy in the form of its 

 interior heat. This part of its energy produces the volcanic phenomena ; 

 but it is without great influence upon the phenomena of the surface, 

 because only a very small amount of this heat comes through. It can 

 be calculated that the amount of heat which goes from the interior to 

 the surface cannot raise the temperature of the surface any higher 

 than the thirteenth part of a degree. 



