GRAVISTATIC HEAT 335 



view, also, of the countless stars of heaven that so fear- 

 lessly defy extinction anything inherently repugnant or 

 illogical in the suggestion that Nature knows the secret 

 for turning to account the enormous compressional force 

 of gravitation at her command, just as she knows how to 

 employ that force in maneuvering the stars and planets? 

 Is it any less reasonable to suppose that static pressure 

 continuously warms the sun than to postulate the Nebula 

 to have been "inherently" incandescent, or that his high 

 temperature was generated by the impacts of meteors so 

 intensely frigid as to "freeze the earth in which they 

 imbed themselves", or that he is "getting hotter because 

 he is cooling off", or that radium is the cause, though, 

 admittedly, no trace thereof has ever been discovered in 

 the solar spectrum"? 



The hypothesis that heat is an entity independent 

 of matter will not bear the probe of truth. If this were 

 the case, the application of high compression should al- 

 ways produce warmth, whereas the fact is it sometimes 

 produces cold. Indeed, heat itself is sometimes utilized 

 in producing cold for instance, in the manufacture of 

 artificial ice and in liquefying air. I allude here, how- 

 ever, more especially to the peculiarity of water in being 

 at its greatest density, not at its freezing point, but at 

 about two degrees above it. Experiment shows that the 

 compression of this mineral does not warm it at all, but 

 actually colds it, its temperature depending, not upon the 

 vigor of the compressing power, but upon its own density 

 while under, or not under, compression. Its state of 

 highest density once attained and established, I maintain, 

 will permanently hold the water at a fixed low tempera- 

 ture, provided, of course, that of the surroundings is not 

 greatly altered in the meanwhile. In other words, just 

 as lead under excessive compressions will perpetually 

 maintain a temperature superior to that of the surround- 

 ing atmosphere, so will water, under similar compression, 

 maintain a lower. 



Here we come face to face with a remarkable pro- 

 vision of Nature that is at the same time an indubitable 



