Count Rumford Identifies Heat 



subject we must not forget that most remarkable 

 circumstance, that the source of the heat gener- 

 ated by friction in these experiments appeared 

 evidently to be inexhaustible. [The italics are 

 Rumford's.] It is hardly necessary to add, that 

 anything which any insulated body or system of 

 bodies can continue to furnish without limitation 

 cannot possibly be a material, substance; and it 

 appears to me to be extremely difficult, if not 

 quite impossible, to form any distinct idea of any- 

 thing capable of being excited and communicated 

 in those experiments, except it be MOTION." 



When the history of the dynamical theory 

 of heat is written, the man who, in opposition to 

 the scientific belief of his time, could experiment 

 and reason upon experiment, as Rumford did 

 in the investigation here referred to, cannot be 

 lightly passed over. Hardly anything mora 

 powerful against the materiality of heat has been 

 since adduced, hardly anything more conclusive 

 in the way of establishing that heat is, what 

 Rumford considered it to be, Motion. 



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