244 Sir Benjamin Thompson’s Experiments on 
no greater luxury than the comfortable fen fation which arifies 
from wearing it, efpecially after one is a little accudomed to 
it. 
It is a midaken notion, that it is too warm a cloathing for 
fummer. I have worn it in the hotted climates, and in all 
feafons of the year, and never found the lead inconvenience 
from it. It is the warm bath of a perforation confined by a 
linen fhirt, wet with fweat, which renders the fummer heats 
of fouthern climates fo infupportable ; but flannel promotes 
perfpiration, and favours its evaporation ; and evaporation, as 
is well known, produces pofitive cold. 
I flrfl began to wear flannel, not from any knowledge which 
I had of its properties, but merely upon the recommendation 
of a very able phyfician (Sir Richard Jebb) ; and when I 
began the experiments of which I have here given an account, 
I little thought of difcovering the phyfical caufe of the good 
effedls which I had experienced from it ; nor had I the. mod 
diflant idea of mentioning the circumflance. I (hall be happy, 
however, if what I have laid, or done, upon the fubjedt, 
fhould induce others to make a trial of what I have fo long 
experienced with the greated advantage, and which, I am con- 
fident, they will find to contribute greatly to health, and con- 
fequently to all the other comforts and enjoyments of life. 
I fliall then think thefe experiments, trifling as they may 
appear, by far the mod fortunate, and the mod important ones 
I have ever made. 
With regard to the original objedl of thefe experiments, the 
difcovery of the relation which I thought might poflibly fub- 
fid between the warmth of the fubdances in quedion, when 
made ufe of as cloathing, and their powers of attracting 
i moidure 
