608 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS, [aNNO 1775. 



times afterwards, when the thermometer had risen much higher, ahnost to 260°, 

 and found that we could bear the heat very well, though the first sensation was 

 always more disagreeable than with our clothes. In all the experiments made 

 this day it was observed, that the thermometer did not sink so much in conse- 

 quence of our stay in the room as on the 23d of Jan. ; probably because a much 

 larger mass of matter had been heated by the longer continuance of the fire. 



Our own observations, with those of M. Tillet, in the Mem. of the Acad, of 

 Sciences, for 1764, had given us good reason to suspect, that there must have 

 been some fallacy in the experiment with a dog, made at the desire of Dr. Boer- 

 haave, and related in his Elements of Chemistry. To determine this matter 

 more exactly, we subjected a bitch weighing 32 lb; to the following experiment. 

 When the thermometer had risen to 220°, the animal was shut up in the heated 

 room, inclosed in a basket, that its feet might be defended from the scorching 

 of the floor, and with a piece of paper before its head and breast to intercept the 

 direct heat of the cockle. In about 10 minutes it began to pant and hold out 

 its tongue, which symptoms continued till the end of the experiment, without 

 . ever becoming more violent than they are usually observed in dogs after exercise 

 in hot weather ; and the animal was so little affected during the whole time, as 

 to show signs of pleasure whenever we approached the basket. After the ex- 

 periment had continued half an hour, when the thermometer had risen to 236°, 

 we opened the basket, and found the bottom of it very wet with saliva, but could 

 perceive no particular foetor. We then applied a thermometer between the 

 thigh and flank of the animal ; in about a minute the quicksilver sunk down to 

 110°: but the real heat of the body was certainly less than this, for we could 

 neither keep the ball of the thermometer a sufficient time in proper contact, nor 

 prevent the hair, which felt sensibly hotter than the bare skin, from touching 

 every part of the instrument. I have since found, that the thermometer held 

 in the same place, when the animal is perfectly cool and at rest, will not rise 

 above 101°. At the end of 32 minutes the bitch was permitted to go out of 

 the room ; on coming into the cold air she appeared perfectly brisk and lively, 

 not in the least injured by the heat, and has now continued very well above a 

 month. Our experiment therefore differs, in every essential circumstance of the 

 event, from that related by Dr. Boerhaave. With respect to this last it is re- 

 markable, if the facts be properly represented, that an intolerable stench arose 

 from the dog ? and that an assistant dropped down senseless on going into the 

 stove. 



To prove that there was no fallacy in the degree of heat shown by the ther- 

 mometer, but that the air which we breathed was capable of producing all the 

 well-known effects of such a heat on inanimate matter, we put some eggs and a 

 beef-steak on a tin frame, placed near the standard thermometer, and farther 



