Life of Count Rumford. 481 



necessity in cooking victuals. Having ventured on this 

 suggestion, he is careful to anticipate by his own good 

 sense the ridicule that might be turned upon him, by 

 confessing that no advantageous circumstances can be 

 imagined for thus generating heat by horse-power, inas- 

 much as more heat might be got by using the horse- 

 fodder as fuel. 



In the last experiment the water in the box, though 

 it surrounded the metallic cylinder, was not allowed to 

 enter the cavity of its bore, being prevented by the 

 piston, and so did not come in contact with the metal- 

 lic surfaces where the heat was generated. No essential 

 difference followed in the trial of another experiment in 

 which this free contact of the water with the inside of 

 the bore was allowed. Rumford was, however, sur- 

 prised by his incidental observation that the almost in- 

 supportable grating noise made by the borer in rubbing 

 against the bottom of the cylinder when only in contact 

 with air was not diminished when they were wet by 

 water. 



These experiments having been thus pursued to re- 

 sults furnishing new materials for thought and scientific 



o 



deduction, the Count says he was naturally brought to 

 that great question which has so long engaged the 

 speculations of philosophers, namely, What is heat ? 

 Is there any such thing as an igneous fluid? Is there 

 anything that can with propriety be called caloric ? 

 Whence came the heat given off in the foregoing ex- 

 periments in a constant stream, in all directions, with- 

 out diminution or exhaustion, as excited in the friction 

 of two metallic surfaces ? It was found that this heat 

 was not furnished by the small particles of metal de- 

 tached by rubbing from the larger mass. Nor was it 

 31 



