﻿ATOMIC HEAT TO CRYSTALLINE FORM. 109 



to the ovum, which, through the processes of development, growth and nutrition, is 

 seen to act as a preservative power ; when it departs, the mass of organized particles 

 which it vivified or animated is left a prey to surrounding destructive influences. 



A crystal is composed of ponderable and imponderable elements; — the former 

 visible, gross and inert; the latter invisible, subtle, expansive and self-repellant. This 

 imponderable is caloric, and in one of its relations it constitutes the specific heat of a 

 body. Through all ponderable bodies it diffuses itself without exception, and accu- 

 mulates in quantities varying with the peculiar nature of the ponderable substance 

 with which it is combined. Here the question naturally presents itself to the 

 inquiring mind, as to the cui bono of this caloric, its uses and relations. Its continued 

 presence, and well-known power and activity, as compared with ponderable matter, 

 authorize us to conclude that it is not without use, otherwise we accuse nature of 

 superfluity, of supererogation, which is manifestly unphilosophical. The combined 

 heat of a body, we know, is intimately connected with the existing condition or state 

 of aggregation of that body. Variation in the one is attended with alteration in the 

 other. Ice, water and steam are three very different forms of one and the same 

 gaseous compound. In all, the ponderable atomic constitution is the same, but the 

 amount of heat contained in each is very different. Diminish the heat of steam, and 

 you convert it into water; diminish it still further, and you convert the water into 

 ice. In this simple instance, then, and others could easily be furnished, we have 

 beautifully manifested the extraordinary influence of caloric upon the aggregation of 

 atoms. And yet with so simple and forcible an example before them — an example 

 embracing the three known conditions in which it is possible for ponderable matter to 

 exist — chemists still express themselves doubtfully as to the propriety of admitting 

 heat as an active constituent of bodies equally essential as their ponderable elements. 



In his interesting paper above referred to, Kopp has given us numerous examples 

 which tend strongly to substantiate the relation which he contends for between iso- 

 morphism and sameness of atomic volume. Crystalline form and volume of atoms 

 are thus closely assimilated, if not, indeed, identified. Thus far concerning the pon- 

 derable matter- Philosophical confidence in the intelligential character and immuta- 

 bility of nature's laws, and in the unerring exactitude of the results of those laws, — 

 in other words, implicit faith in the fundamental and truly scientific doctrine that 

 " nothing was made in vain," here encourages us to advance at least one step further 

 in the cautious investigation of this intricate subject, by attempting to ascertain the 

 relation between the atomic volume and the imponderable element caloric surrounding 

 the atoms of a crystal. 



In the following tables, where a number of elementary and compound bodies have 

 been grouped together isomorphously, it will be seen that for each group the numbers 

 expressive of the atomic volumes of the different substances of that group are either 



