BECCHER AND STAHL. 213 



When Count Rumford and Sir H. Davy sup- 

 posed that heat was motion, they mistook the 

 effect for the cause ; for I have shewn that all 

 the contractions and expansions of bodies, whe- 

 ther solid, liquid, or gaseous, result from their 

 various relations to caloric. If a portion of al- 

 cohol or water be put into a Florence flask, 

 their particles remain comparatively tranquil ; 

 but when placed over a burning lamp, a rapid 

 intestine motion begins, and augments in pro- 

 portion to the increase of temperature, until they 

 are driven off in the form of steam. Nothing, 

 however, could be more absurd, than to confound 

 the motion of ebullition with its cause, which is 

 evidently something derived from the lamp ; for 

 when the source of heat is removed, the ebul- 

 lition and vaporization cease. 



When Lavoisier pointed out the extensive 

 agency of oxygen in combustion and ferment- 

 ation, he overlooked the still more important 

 fact, that the chemical power of all bodies is 

 augmented by every addition of caloric ; and 

 when Davy observed, that combustion was the 

 solution of bodies in oxygen gas, he overlooked 

 the fact, that all gaseous bodies are solutions of 

 ponderable matter in caloric, without which they 

 could not dissolve and combine chemically with 

 other bodies. 



It was maintained by Beccher and Stahl, that 

 all bodies contained within them an exceedingly 



