6 Dugald Clerk, The Work and Discoveries of Joule 



in a certain time by the action of two horses not urged to 

 overwork themselves. The full conversion of the scientific 

 world to the kinetic theory of heat took place about the 

 middle of the nineteenth century, and was no doubt an 

 immediate consequence of Joule's work, although Rumford 

 and Davy's demonstrative experiments, and the ingenious 

 and penetrating speculations of Mohn, Sequin and Mayer 

 and the experimental thermodynamic measurements of 

 Golding all no doubt contributed to the result." 



Lord Kelvin here gave Joule the very highest place among 

 the scientific men who had all contributed something to the 

 establishment of the great science of thermodynamics, but the 

 fact that Joule arrived at the true nature of heat years before 

 Lord Kelvin had abandoned the long-standing error of theory 

 shows that in some respects Joule was Kelvin's intellectual 

 superior, and this alone gives him a place in physical science 

 as a man of a century. 



Manchester has been the home of many highly distin- 

 guished men ; great scientific men, great inventors, and great 

 masters of industry and business, but it is fortunate indeed in 

 its connection with two of the greatest discoverers in the 

 history of the world — Dalton and Joule. A very distinguished 

 professor of your University has recently discussed the whole 

 history of British science on its physical side, and he divides 

 science into epochs, ten landmarks, as he calls them, repre- 

 sented by the names Roger Bacon, Gilbert, Napier, Newton,. 

 Dalton, Young, Faraday, Joule, William Thomson and Clerk 

 Maxwell ; beginning with Roger Bacon in the thirteenth 

 century and terminating with Clerk Maxwell in the latter part 

 of the nineteenth. That two out of those ten great names 

 should belong to Manchester shows the high position attained 

 by your city in the intellectual life of the Kingdom. Further 

 your Society has been presided over bv both great men. 

 Joule was your secretary for years before he became your 

 President. Joule read his first paper before vour Society in 

 the year 1841, entitled, " On the Electric Origin of the Heat 

 of Combustion," and was elected a member on the 25th 

 January, 1842. He contributed a long series of papers from 

 1 84 1 till 1879, a period of thirty-eight years, and he dealt with 

 a great variety of subjects including experimental investiga- 

 tions on the phenomena of the voltaic current, on the deter- 

 mination of the specific heat of bodies, heat and constitution 

 of elastic fluids, notes on mirage, freezing point of thermo- 

 meters, galvanometers, dip circle, solar photographs, dutv of 



