192 Historical Review of Experiments 



as shown by the thermometer, would be more than suf- 

 ficient to calculate therefrom the proportional amount 

 of heat necessary to bring to the same temperature the 

 balls and an equal quantity of water. 



I had already begun upon these experiments, but 

 before I could finish them the war made it necessary for 

 me to go to America. These researches were therefore 

 interrupted for several years ; and when, after the peace 

 of 1783, I returned to England, I learned that Wilkin, 

 in Sweden, had already carried out exactly what I had 

 proposed to myself. Since I had not the slightest 

 occasion to doubt the accuracy of the experiments 

 performed by this philosopher, I laid aside, as useless, 

 the apparatus which I had designed for my own in- 

 vestigations. 



In the following year I left England and went to 

 Bavaria, where I was received into the service of the 

 late Elector. I brought with me several instruments 

 belonging to the above-mentioned apparatus, which are 

 still to be seen in the museum of the military school in 

 Munich. 



For more than twenty years I have never in any of 

 my writings mentioned either my project and the prepa- 

 rations made for carrying out experiments on this point, 

 or the experiments I really made and which agree with 

 those of Wilkin, simply because I hate, and always 

 have hated, the character of a man who appropriates 

 the discoveries of another. I speak of them now rather 

 to convince the public that I have long thought about 

 this subject, than from any motive which might perhaps 

 have its origin in personal vanity. 



My relations at the court at Munich, and that, too, 

 with a prince who was much interested in the promo- 



