ON AETIFICIAL REFRIGERATION. 905 



cover a memoir of special value, en'titled " Meditationcs do Caloris et 

 Frigoris Causa — Auctore Michaele Lomonosow, whicL. has, so far 

 as I am avrare, been entirely overlooked by ^vriters on the liistory of 

 the Theory of Heat. Here I can only state that he recognizes the suf- 

 ficient cause of heat «& consisting in the motion of matter^ and although for 

 the most part in hot bodies no motion can be perceived by sight, never- 

 theless it is manifested by its eftects. Thus, iron heated almost to igni- 

 tion, may be quiescent to the eye, but if bodies are brought in contact 

 with it, they melt or resolve themselves to vapors ; tliat is, their ])arts are 

 excited hy motion. "Who would deny," says the logical Lomonosow, 

 " that when a violent wind traverses a forest the leaves and boughs of 

 the trees are agitated, although on looking from a great distance no 

 motion could be detected by sight?" I hope elsewhere to publish com- 

 ments on this remarkable contribution to science, published over fifty 

 years before Benjamin, Count of Eumford, opened his classical Essay 

 on Heat as follows: "Without entering into those abstruse and most 

 difficult investigations respecting the nature of fire which have em- 

 ployed the attention and di^^lded the opinions of speculative philoso- 

 phers in all ages ; without even attempting to determine whether there 

 be such a thing as an igneous fluid or not ; whether what we call heat be 

 occasioned by the accumulation or by the increased action of such a 

 fluid, or whether it arises merely from an increased motion in the com- 

 ponent particles of the body heated, or of some elastic fluid by which 

 those particles are supposed to be surrounded, and upon which they are 

 supposed to act, or by which they are supposed to be acted upon ; in 

 short, without bewildermg myself and my reader in this endless labyrinth 

 of darkness and uncertainty," &c., &c. Lomonosow was evidently un- 

 known or neglected, as he has been ever since, so far as I can learn, and 

 it is with infinite satisfaction that I direct attention to a hidden treasure 

 of immense interest to all engaged in the study of i)hysics, and who, in 

 the cause of truth and justice, always desire to give credit where credit 

 is due. 



What does he tell us about the nature of cold ? He anticipates all 

 that has been said of the absolute zero — of the point at which all heat 

 motion ceases. He says : "No celerity of motion can be assumed so 

 extreme that another greater cannot be conceived, since the latter also 

 may justly be referred to calorific motion. Therefore, a supreme and 

 ultimate highest possible grade of heat in respect of motion does not 

 exist. On the other hand, however, the same motion may be diminished 

 to such a degree that finally the body shall be totally at rest, and no fiu^- 

 ther diminution of the motion can follow. Necessarily, therefore, a 

 supreme and ultimate degree of cold will consist in absolute rest of par- 

 ticles." He tells us that " everything which appears to us cold is only 

 less warm than our organs by which we feel." How far-seeing and accu- 

 rate is the statement that "it is not to be supposed that the congelation 

 of bodies is a criterion of ultimate cold, for metals solidified immediately 



