GRAVISTATIC HEAT 297 



high temperature shall forever go hand in hand. The 

 bearing of heavy loads continuously oppresses matter as 

 it oppresses the human slave, the latter experiencing pain 

 and weariness, the former evincing its discomfort in 

 "molecular inflammation," as it were, or heat. Jupiter, 

 like the sun and stars, is hot for keeps. 



The hypothesis that heat is an entity independent 

 of matter will not bear the probe of truth. If this were 

 the case, the application of high compression should al- 

 ways produce warmth, whereas the fact is it sometimes 

 produces cold. Indeed, heat itself is sometimes utilized 

 in producing cold for instance, in the manufacture of 

 artificial ice and in liquefying air. I allude here, how- 

 ever, more especially to the peculiarity of water in being 

 at its greatest density, not at its freezing point, but at 

 about two degrees above it. Experiment shows that the 

 compression of this mineral does not warm it at all, but 

 actually colds it, its temperature depending, not upon the 

 vigor of the compressing power, but upon its own density 

 while under, or not under, compression. Its state of 

 highest density once attained and established, I maintain, 

 will permanently hold the water at a fixed low tempera- 

 ture, provided, of course, that of the surroundings is not 

 greatly altered in the meanwhile. In other words, just 

 as lead under excessive compressions will perpetually 

 maintain a temperature superior to that of the surround- 

 ing atmosphere, so will water, under similar compression, 

 maintain a lower. 



Here we come face to face with a remarkable pro- 

 vision of Nature that is at the same time an indubitable 

 corroboration of this reasoning. We have already called 

 attention to the phenomenon that the earth's tempera- 

 ture increases one degree Fahrenheit for about every 60 

 feet of depth. At this rate of increase the temperature 

 at 12.480 feet, the average depth of the ocean, should be 

 no less than 212. In direct contrast with this, deep 

 ocean soundings all over the world have shown that the 

 bottom waters are invariably just a little above zero (that 

 is to say, at the temperature appropriate to water 's 

 greatest density). On the one hand, then, we have the 



