206 



June 25, 1838. 

 SIR Wm. R. HAMILTON, A.M., President, in the Chair. 



Dr. Apjohn made some remarks upon the subject of the 

 Specific Heats of Gases. 



The author stated that he had received, some months 

 since, a memoir on the subject of the specific heats of 

 gases, by M. Suerman, an eminent Dutch philosopher ; upon 

 examining which, he was not a little surprised to find that the 

 method of the author was identically the same with that which 

 he had himself employed, in a paper on the same subject, 

 which has appeared in the last volume of the Transactions 

 of the Academy. The following passage of M. Suerman's 

 preface, however, completely removed his apprehensions of 

 having been anticipated — "Tandem opus aggressus, et oc- 

 cupatus in idonea paranda supellectili diarium accepi Angli- 

 cum, quo in collegio, quod Dublini habetur, Chemiae Profes- 

 soris Apjohn continebatur disquisitio, ex eodemilla principio 

 fluidorum elasticorum calorem specificum derivans. Pri- 

 mum, — quid sileam ? — animo despondebam quum novitatis 

 colorem quse mihi prascipue arridebat, de meo evanescere 

 viderem proposito." 



This passage, he stated, he had been long anxious to 

 bring before the Academy, lest, when Suerman's Thesis came 

 to be noticed in the British journals, any Member of the 

 Academy should suppose that he had borrowed his method 

 from the learned Dutchman, and had done so without 

 ackno wle d gment. 



Dr. Apjohn then proceeded to remark upon some points, 

 in reference to which he considered himself as having 

 been misapprehended by M. Suerman. Thus he is repre- 

 sented in the following passage, as adopting an erroneous 

 method of estimating the caloric of elasticity of aqueous 

 vapour. " In computando vero formulam quam a claro Gay- 



