STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 175 



We have learned somewhat of the nature of the atmosphere 

 and of fire; and the earth and the sea have released to man 

 largely of their treasures, and many of their secrets. The earth 

 and the sea and the air have been tried in' the philosopher's 

 scales, and many of their salient features made a matter of record 

 their magnitudes have been approximately determined, and they 

 have been "weighed in the balance." 



Unlike these, the fourth element, fire, has thus far eluded the 

 pursuit and grasp of the philosopher and the chemist. 



Even to the present generation, who have harnessed the light- 

 ning and caused it to do the bidding and work of man — to send 

 messages throughout the length and breadth of the land, and to 

 turn night into day — even to them fire is yet accepted as an 

 almost unfathomed mystery. 



Heat and light are the only contributions yet made by fire to 

 the vocabulary of science, and to neither of these have been as- 

 cribed the qualities of magnitude and weight. 



Like their cognates — electricity and magnetism — they have 

 no sensible weight varying with concentration or intensity, nor 

 have they a defined location. They are found everywhere and 

 under all circumstances, and their presence or absence is always 

 noted in the matter-of-fact way of every-day life. 



Heat is a term employed in a general sense and without 

 special reference to source or degree, and to denote cause and 

 effect — one or both. 



With reference to its status or condition, it is classed either 

 as sensible heat or as latent heat. Sensible heat requires but 

 little in the way of definition. It is heat proper, or tangible 

 heat; it is heat simply, and in the free and general acceptation of 

 the term. Latent heat is described as "that portion of heat 

 which enters into a body while changing from a solid to a liquid 

 form, or from a liquid to a gaseous form, and without altering 

 the temperature of that body." Thus latent heat is that por- 

 tion or quantity of heat necessary to employ in converting a 

 block of ice at 32° temperature into a body of water at 32° tem- 

 perature, which, we i)ropose soon to show, is an inappreciable 

 quantity. The same theory holds good also relative to the c<^nver- 

 sion of water into the gaseous form of steam. 



The term latent, and the definition given, although generally 

 accepted and used, seems to want relevancy and fitness, and to be 

 unwisely chosen. 



To continue to heat a body without changing the temperature 

 of that body, is at least paradoxical. 



