154 Notices respecting New Books. 



Not Copernicus and G-alilei, when they abolished the Ptolemaic 

 system ; not Newton, when he annihilated the Cartesian vortices ; 

 not Young and Fresnel, when they exploded the Corpuscular 

 Theory ; not Faraday and Clerk-Maxwell, in their splendid victory 

 over Actio in distans — more thoroughly shattered a malignant and 

 dangerous heresy, than did Joule when he overthrew the baleful 

 giant Force, and firmly established, by lawful means, the bene- 

 ficent rule of the rightful monarch, Energy ! Then, and not till 

 then, were the marvellous achievements of Sadi Carnot rendered 

 fully available ; and Science silently underwent a revolution more 

 swift and more tremendous than ever befel a nation. But this, 

 also, must be a theme for the Poet of the Future ! 



To be pedantic, if not also prosaic, is the fate (usually self- 

 imposed) of most commentators. We will therefore content our- 

 selves with a brief analysis of the contents of the present volume, 

 while expressing the hope that its successor may soon appear ; and 

 we offer, in passing, our cordial thanks to the Physical Society for 

 this great boon to Science. 



The present volume is confined to papers by Joule himself ; and 

 the happy adoption of the chronological order enables the reader 

 to follow, step by step, the progress of his scientific career. We 

 can trace how, by his early electromagnetic investigations, he was 

 led to study the Voltaic pile ; how, in a brief note of 1840 (p. 59), 

 he puts in a few words the whole experimental laws of the pro- 

 duction of heat by the resistance to the passage of a current ; and 

 how this, in its turn, led him to the heat of electrolysis, and its 

 connexion with heat of combination. Then it is, as it were, quite 

 a natural step to the grand paper " On the Calorific Effects of 

 Magneto- electricity, and on the Mechanical Value of Heat" (1843). 

 This paper contains, in an Appendix, the remarkably close approxi- 

 mation to the true value of the Dynamical Equivalent of Heat which 

 Joule obtained by the friction of water in narrow tubes, and the 

 first hint of the application of his views to animal physiology. It 

 was followed in the succeeding year by another epoch-making paper 

 " On the Changes of Temperature produced by the Barefaction and 

 Condensation of Air." But it skills not to go through, in this way, 

 what might be obtained from the mere Index : — the book must be 

 read. And the reader who knows only the grander facts for which 

 Joule now gets credit will certainly at intervals pause, and ponder 

 on the strange freaks of even scientific history, when he meets with 

 a well-known fact or theory which, though perhaps it has made the 

 fame of some more recent investigator, is now seen to have been 

 given, long ago, by Joule. 



After all, he will probably conclude that " minds of the first 

 order " are still by no means rare. And he will be confirmed in 

 that conclusion by every additional volume which appears, of the 

 collected works of living men like Stokes and Thomson, and of the 

 mighty dead like Henry Smith and Clerk-Maxwell. 



