HEAT AND LIGHT IDENTICAL. 35 



gradation, until at length having reached within half an inch of 

 the orifice of the jet, it fused and ran down in globules. 



He observed the flame was hollow at that spot, and the 

 platina had reached the dark portion of the flame when it 

 fused. 



Now this is a confirmation of what I have observed, that 

 where light is perfect, heat is decreased and terminates, and 

 that it is only in the reduction of fixed matter to its original 

 elements from the solid to the liquid, and thence to the gaseous, 

 the appropriate condition for such elements by their union in 

 the necessary order of polarity to form light, that HEAT be- 

 comes sensible not as a matter distinct, but as a consequence 

 on the disturbance of the quiescent state of fixed matter, and 

 becoming intensely sensible from the energy of action exerted 

 in the re-solution of fixed matter to its original elements 

 which are the identical elements of light. 



I must apologise to the reader for another quotation from 

 Mr. Gurney's excellent work, to the perusal of which I must 

 again refer. 



Mr. Gurney observes, page 307, " I would here ask the 

 question, " Is not light a product of heat, formed either per- 

 fectly or imperfectly as the circumstances which influence the 

 liberation of heat, are favorable or unfavorable to its pro- 

 duction ? " 



" Is there not a certain temperature which is necessary to its 

 perfect formation ? " 



(< Does not light diminish as the temperature exceeds this 

 standard ? and is it not diminished as it falls below it ? " 

 " Reasoning (he continues) from the results of the above expe- 

 riments and the facts relative to these subjects which are gene- 

 rally known, I cannot (he observes) help concluding that it is so 

 and also that heat itself is an effect of the peculiar change 

 and condensation of the elements of combustion into new forms 

 and definite position of the atoms with respect to each other." 

 See Lecture on Crystallization. 



D2 



