A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



quantity of heat, capable of increasing the tempera- 

 ture of a pound of water by one degree of Fahrenheit's 

 scale, is equal to the mechanical force capable of rais- 

 ing a weight of about eight hundred and thirty pounds 

 to the height of one foot." 2 



JOULE OR MAYER? 



Two years later Joule wished to read another paper, 

 but the chairman hinted that time was limited, and 

 asked him to confine himself to a brief verbal synopsis 

 of the results of his experiments. Had the chairman 

 but known it, he was curtailing a paper vastly more 

 important than all the other papers of the meeting put 

 together. However, the synopsis was given, and one 

 man was there to hear it who had the genius to appre- 

 ciate its importance. This was William Thomson, the 

 present Lord Kelvin, now known to all the world as 

 among the greatest of natural philosophers, but then 

 only a novitiate in science. He came to Joule's aid, 

 started rolling the ball of controversy, and subse- 

 quently associated himself with the Manchester ex- 

 perimenter in pursuing his investigations. 



But meantime the acknowledged leaders of British 

 science viewed the new doctrine askance. Faraday, 

 Brewster, Herschel those were the great names in 

 physics at that day, and no one of them could quite 

 accept the new views regarding energy. For several 

 years no older physicist, speaking with recognized 

 authority, came forward in support of the doctrine of 

 conservation. This culminating thought of the first 

 half of the nineteenth century came silently into the 

 world, unheralded and unopposed. The fifth decade 



272 



