64 Of the Management of Fire 



clear and distinct idea of the subject under consid- 

 eration in all its various details and connections, and 

 enable him to comprehend without the smallest diffi- 

 culty every thing I have to add on this subject ; and 

 particularly to discover the different objects I had in 

 view in the experiments of which I am now about to 

 give an account, and to judge with facility and certainty 

 of the conclusions I have drawn from their results. 



These experiments, though they occupy so many 

 pages in this Essay, are but a small part of those I have 

 made, and caused to be made under my direction, on 

 the subject of heat, during the last seven years. Were 

 I to publish them all, with all their details as they are 

 recorded in the register that has been kept of them, 

 they would fill several volumes. 



It was most fortunate for me that this register is very 

 voluminous ; for, had it not been so, I should in all 

 probability have taken it with me to England last year, 

 and in that case I should have lost it, with the rest of 

 my papers, in the trunk of which I was robbed in pass- 

 ing through St. Paul's churchyard, on my arrival in 

 London after an absence of eleven years.* 



As I foresaw, when I first began my inquiries respect- 

 ing heat, that I should have occasion to make many 

 experiments on boiling liquids, to facilitate the register- 

 ing of them I formed a table (which I had printed), in 

 which, under various heads, every circumstance relative 

 to any common experiment of the kind in question 

 could be entered with much regularity, and with little 

 trouble. 



* I have many reasons to think that these papers are still in being. What 

 an everlasting obligation should I be under to the person who would cause them 

 to be returned to me 1 



