Dynamical Theory of Heat. 377 



liberally distributes ? " You then consider the various hypotheses 

 framed to account for the permanence of solar emission, and 

 develope the meteoric theory of the sun's heat. Mayer did the 

 same fourteen years before you wrote this article in ' Good Words/ 

 and six years before you published your earliest paper en the sub- 

 ject in the Edinburgh Transactions. There is not an idea of any 

 originality in the whole of that paper that is not to be found in the 

 memoirs of Mayer ; and yet you do not give him an iota of credit 

 in this article of yours in ' Good Words/ the accuracy of which 

 you have so trumpeted forth. Mayer, moreover, went further 

 than you did, and showed that the heat produced by tidal friction 

 must be generated at the expense of the earth's rotation. This 

 is but an episode in Mayer's 'Essay on Celestial Dynamics/ 

 but it is eminently illustrative of the clear glance which this 

 hard-working physician had obtained into the system of nature. 

 Here was a phenomenon which had been for centuries the sub- 

 ject of observation, measurement, and calculation j still no astro- 

 nomer, no mathematician, no natural philosopher perceived its 

 inevitable mechanical effect. But Mayer, following out his 

 own principles, saw and enunciated that the motion of the tides, 

 indefinitely continued, must finally stop the earth's rotation. 

 Name, if you can the " mathematician or naturalist, from Galileo 

 to Davy," who ever "elaborated" these things. You cannot 

 do so ; and while science lives, the name of Mayer will be asso- 

 ciated with these questions. In the presence of such facts, it ill 

 becomes you to talk to me of suppression and depreciation. 

 You may send your statements into the world labelled ' Good 

 Words/ but the world before which you and I now stand will 

 see that the " trade mark " is incorrect ; that if to be pitiful, if 

 to be courteous, if to cherish that charity which thinketh no 

 evil, be the marks of goodness, these utterances of yours are not 

 good words, but the reverse. Judged of by the facts, and apart 

 from your own uninformed convictions, they are not even words 

 of truth. 



In your last communication you anticipated " unpleasant 

 results," and, doubtless, taking it for granted that the unplea- 

 santness was to be all on my side, you were good enough to 

 inform me (still by anticipation) that I had only myself to 

 blame. Certainly it is in the highest degree unpleasant to 

 me to be compelled to write as I have here written. It wastes 

 that commodity which to me is the most precious of all — my 

 time, and it stirs up feelings between you and me which I 

 would make any sacrifice consistent with self-respect to annul. 



assurement egal au progres qui est resulte, vers la fin du siecle dernier, des 

 decouvertes de Lavoisier etde SSenebier sur la respiration." — Verdet, p. 101. 



