LIFE OF 8ADI CARNOT. 31 



will. He took advantage of his leisure to make 

 journeys and to visit our principal centres of 

 industry. 



He frequently visited M. Clement Desormes, 

 professor at the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, 

 who had made great advances in applied chemistry. 

 M. Desormes willingly took counsel with him. 

 He was a native of Bourgogne, our family coun- 

 try, which circumstance, I believe, brought them 

 together. 



It was before this period (in 1824) that Sadi had 

 published his Reflexions sur la puissance motrice, 

 du feu. He had seen how little progress had been 

 made in the theory of machines in which this 

 power was employed. He had ascertained that 

 the improvements made in their arrangement were 

 effected tentatively, and almost by chance. He 

 comprehended that in order to raise this important 

 art above empiricism, and to give it the rank of a 

 science, it was necessary to study the phenomena 

 of the production of motion by heat, from the 

 most general point of view, independently of any 

 mechanism, of any special agent ; and such had 

 been the thought of his life. 



Did he foresee that this small brochure would 

 become the foundation of a new science? He 

 tnust have attached much importance to it to 



