382 Dr. Ure's new experimental researches 
these difficulties and contradictions are removed at once by 
the experimental fact, that water is endowed with a de- 
creasing ratio in its capacity for caloric, as its temperature is 
augmented. 
Since finishing the above researches on specific heat, I have 
been led to examine attentively the systematic accounts of 
this subject in our chemical treatises ; and I find that Ber- 
thollet, with a sagacity peculiar to himself, had anticipated, 
from the chemical constitution of bodies, such an experimental 
result as I have recently obtained ; though the statements 
then prevalent all militated against his views. “ If caloric 
“ obey the usual laws of attraction, when it is in small 
“ quantity, relative to the body to which it is united, it will 
“ enter into more intimate combination ; and hence the elas- 
“ ticity or expansive energy of it, on which temperature 
“ depends, may be overcome, and a larger quantity be required 
“ to produce a given temperature. Hence, the quantity of 
“ caloric contained in bodies in the first stage of temperature, 
“ may be greater than it will be higher in the scale.” 
In the Essay above referred to, I have shown that this cir- 
cumstance in water, renders it peculiarly qualified for serving 
as the magazine and equalizer of the temperature of the 
globe. Since at our ordinary atmospherical heats, it pos- 
sesses the greatest capacity for caloric, small variations in its 
temperature give it a great modifying power over the 
circumambient air. Although the doctrine of final causes 
be no safe guide to the discovery of unknown truths, yet 
when it concurs with experiment, we may deem it an agreeable 
confirmation. This is finely illustrated by Count Rumford’s 
speculations on the maximum density of water being placed 
