HEAT A CONSEQUENCE OF LIGHT. 47 



state, and the residuum into charcoal, and ashes, (if ignited in 

 atmospheric air,) while the sensation of heat is generated as 

 an effect only resting on the energy of the process of the tran- 

 sition of fixed matter into the radiant state of light. 



As all bodies contain light in their interstices, subject to 

 the exciting powers of the galvanic or electrical forces, it may 

 be readily conceived that when the contemplated changes of 

 nature or art shall be at any time attempted, a disturbance of 

 the corpuscular atoms of latent light, by separation to the 

 opposite states of electricity, must, when simultaneously 

 exerted, produce an expansion in the solid body, which may 

 then be the seat of action ; and that the repetition of those 

 gradual and continuous galvanic or electrical discharges must 

 increase that expansion, till the usual cohesive power by which 

 the atomic arrangements of the body were originally retained 

 are finally overcome, and the body is resolved into its appro- 

 priate form, either as a liquid or a gas, or to a radiant state, 

 or one, or more of them, as the nature of the compound is 

 calculated to produce. 



Thus, when a stream of electricity is transmitted by a gal- 

 vanic apparatus, through a piece of small platina wire attached 

 to a copper wire at both ends, of comparatively large calibre, 

 the small wire attains, at first, a sensible elevation of tempe- 

 rature, amounting to incandescence, then a white heat, and is 

 ultimately reduced to a state of fusion, while the wire of great 

 calibre which simply acted as a conductor, is not in the slightest 

 degree affected, showing that HEAT is a consequence of the 

 rapidity and energy with which that separated portion, the 

 oxygen red ray of light, or electricity, had been transmitted 

 through a diminished volume of a metallic body, while the 

 conducting metallic body of thirty or forty, or one hundred 

 times the area, though having received and transmitted the 

 whole of the electrical force alluded to, was not in the slightest 

 degree affected. 



Now if heat had been a distinct and separate matter or 



