GO 
REPORT—1854. 
days of Newton. From that discovery, it may be concluded with certainty flat 
heat is not matter, but some kind of motion among the particles of matter; a con¬ 
clusion established, it is true, by Sir Humphrey Davy and Count Rumfordatthe 
end of last century, but ignored by even the highest scientific men during a perial 
of more than forty years, Mr. Joule, by a series of well-planned and executed 
experiments, ascertained that a pound of water would have its temperature 
increased by 1° (Fahrenheit) if it kept all the heat that would be generated byto 
descent through 772 feet; that is, the “ actual" or " dynamical’’ enemy of a 
much heat as raises the temperature of a pound of water 1° is au exact eijuiralfc: 
for the potential energy of a pound of matter 772 feet above the ground. Mr. 
Joule also fully established the relations of equivalence among the energis if 
chemical affinity, of heat, of combination, or of combustion, of electrical current 
in the galvanic battery, of electrical currents in magneto-electric machine-, a 
engines worked by galvanism, and of ull the varied and interchangeable mani¬ 
festations of calorific action and mechanical force which accompany them. Tte* 
researches, with the theory of animal heat and motion in relation to the hi! - 
combustion of the food, and the theory of the phenomena presented by shown? 
slats, clue to the same penetrating investigation, have afforded to the author of fix 
present communication the chief groundwork for his speculations. 
I lie beat emitted by animals, and the mechanical effects which they produce. 
transformations ol the energy of chemical affinity with which the food consume! : 
them combines with the oxygen they inhale. The heat, sound, and mechanic 
effects produced by the explosion of gunpowder are, all together, equivalent:.!;' 
energy of chemical affinity between the different substances of which gunpowfcra 
composed. The potential energy of war is contained in the stores of gonpoKto 
and food brought into the field. The gunpowder carried by artillery and info* 
cuntam, all the potential energy ordinarily brought into action by those two an : 
ni.tonf 8 7 V,Ce * i , l ' e raon ' 8 food', and the forage for the horses, contain the stum* 
sailo^ If l ' nergy dra ' v \ u l K)n in a charge of cavalry. Artillerymen, foot sold.*, 
bv which*till 6 ™ ] Vlt • t , heir en S* nes # guns, swords, are only means and appi-“\ 
dSected to CI ‘ Crg - v cont ained in the stores of gunpowder and feou- 
The h Pnt * 1 lc . )low8 t b y which the desired effects are produced. 
e heat and mechanical actions of animals are transformations of the poten.* 
animals and Can grow in tbe dark, are nourished bv organic food _ 
vegetables mf * 1 , ° r ^ 0X - S en aQ d exhale carbonic acid like animals, all 1 
mutter from grcatcr .part of their substance, certainly all their combu^; • 
the air and soil ,f,f om P° 81t ' 0n of carbonic acid and water, absorbed by ,lie ® : ; 
The 
tie* 
decomposition* i« V* tep8ratio0 °f carbon and of hydrogen from oxygen in 
those elements hi ? nep B® tic effect, equivalent to the heat of recombinate 
and the subseoS 5 .nV busl,on 0r otherwise. The beautiful discovery of ft**-' 
and otLrs lX 1 lT e 5 ,rches of Senncbier. De Saussure, Sir Humphrey 
carbonic acid onlv t '! l l u ‘te certain that those decompositions ol vra 
the greenhl, 1 r P ’ aee naturally in the day time, and that light 
ditin'n, without wbirb'fK 01 " tbe SUn or frotn aD artificial source, is an essential ^ 
it is the dynamienl . K - are never effected. There cannot be a doubt r 
forcing the nartielc^Af^ ?*" tbe luminiferous vibrations which is here jj 
which they are »,ttrn , c 5 r ^°. n , and hydrogen away from those of oxygen, 
motion. n? c redur* 'T^ w,lh •«* Powerful affinities; and that lumun^; 
thus called into brinif exte nt exactly equivalent to the potenti . 
foliage is to ml S, ' V t ether or not the coilness of green fields ^. 
j» put out of expiate riff ° C . Xtcnt ^ ue to this cause, it is quite certain that* n ^ _ 
just as much heat neither n ^ ln the S roVV <h of plants in any locahtv. an 
growth of any period of fi”‘ 0re nor le **> emitted from fires in which ( the j- » 
Ancient vegetation derived it° ls bu C ned - Coal, composed as it is of the 
fires then give us heat and i:i?f* te ? tial euer gV from the light of distent ag • 
Our coal fires and n amnif • Which haa &n got from the sun a 
6a& lara P 3 l)nn S out for our present comfort beat and 1#* 
