HEAT.
HEAT, OR CALORIC.
The chief agent in causing the repulsion or separation of the particles of bodies from each other is heat, or more correctly caloric, by which is understood the unknown cause of the effect called heat. Philosophers are not agreed upon the nature of this wonderful agent. It pervades all nature, is the cause of nearly all the changes that take place both in organic and inorganic matter, and has great influence in the meteorological phenomena which we observe in the atmosphere that surrounds our planet. It appears to be intimately connected with light, electricity, and magnetism,—subjects which the genius of Faraday and others have investigated, and by their discoveries brought us nearer to the knowledge of the real nature of these most wonderful forces.
Caloric, then, exists in all bodies, and has a constant tendency to equalize itself, as far at least as its outward manifestation, called temperature, is concerned; for if a hot body be brought near colder ones, it will give up heat to them, until by its loss and their gain they all become of the same temperature; and this proceeds more or less rapidly, according as the original difference of temperature was greater or less. Some other circumstances also influence this equalization. The converse will take place on introducing a cold body among warmer ones, when heat will be abstracted from all the bodies within reach of its influence, until it has absorbed sufficient caloric to bring its own temperature to an equality with theirs. This is the true explanation of the apparent production of cold. When, for instance, an iceberg comes across a ship’s course, it appears to give out cold, whereas, it has abstracted the heat from the air and sea in its neighbourhood, and they in turn act upon the ship and everything in it, until one common temperature is produced in all the neighbouring bodies.
It does not follow that the bodies thus equalized in temperature contain equal quantities of caloric; far from it. Each body requires a particular quantity of caloric to raise its temperature through a certain number of degrees; and such quantity is called its specific caloric. A pound of water, for instance, will take just twice as much caloric as a pound of olive oil, to raise its temperature through the same number of degrees; the specific caloric of water is therefore double that of oil. Mix any quantity of oil at 60° of temperature with an equal weight of water at 90°, and you will find the temperature of the mixture to be nearly 80°, instead of only 74° or 75°, showing that while the water has lost only 10° of caloric, the mixture has risen 20°. If the oil be at 90°, and the water at 60°, the resulting temperature will be only 70°, or thereabouts, instead of 75°, the mean; thus, here the hot oil has lost 20°, while the mixture has risen only 10°; the water, then, contains at the same temperature twice as much caloric as the oil; its specific caloric is double that of the oil. This mean temperature does result when equal weights of the same body at different temperatures are mixed together.
The sensations called heat and cold are by no means accurate measures of the real temperature of any substances, for many causes influence these sensations, some belonging to the substances themselves, others to the state of our organs at the time. Every one has remarked that metals in a warm room feel warmer, and in a cold room colder than wooden articles, and these again than woollen or cotton articles of dress or furniture; this arises from metals being what is termed better conductors of heat than wood, and this better than wool, &c., that is, they give out or absorb caloric more rapidly than these last. Some philosophers, wishing to ascertain how much heat the human body could endure, had a room heated with stoves, every crevice being carefully stopped, until the temperature rose so high that a beefsteak placed on the table was sufficiently cooked to be eaten. They were dressed in flannel, and could with impunity touch the carpets, curtains, &c., in the room; but the iron handles, fire-irons, and all metallic substances, burnt their fingers; and one who wore silver spectacles was obliged to remove them to save his nose. The fallacy of our sensations may be easily shown by taking two basins, placing in one some water at 100°, in another some water at as low a temperature as can easily be procured—hold the right hand in one, the left in the other, for a few minutes, and then mix them, and place both hands in the mixture; it will feel quite cold to the hand that had been in the hotter water, and hot to the other.
In order to arrive at a correct estimate of the temperature of bodies, instruments are made use of called thermometers, or measurers of heat, which show increase or diminution of temperature by the rising or falling of a column of some fluid in a tube of glass, one end of which is expanded into a bulb, and the other hermetically sealed. This effect is produced by the expansion or swelling of the fluid as caloric is added to, and its contraction when caloric is abstracted from it. Coloured spirits of wine, or quicksilver, are the most usual thermometric fluids, and the tube containing them is fixed to a wooden or metallic frame, on which certain divisions are marked, called degrees.
That in general use in England is called Fahrenheit’s, from the name of the person who first introduced that particular scale. In this thermometer, the point at which the mercury in the tube stands when plunged into melting ice, is marked 32°, and the distance between that point, and the point to which the mercury rises in boiling water, is divided into 180 equal parts, called degrees; so that water is said to boil at 212° = 180° + 32°. There are two other scales of temperature used in different parts of the world, but it is not worth while to notice them here.
Not only do different bodies at the same degree of temperature contain very different quantities of caloric, but this also is the case with the same body in different forms. Ice, water, and steam, are three forms of the same body, but ice at 32° contains much less caloric than water at the same temperature, and water at 212° contains much less caloric than steam (or water in a state of vapour) at that temperature.
Place in a jar any given quantity of snow, or small pieces of ice, at 32°, and in another the same weight of water at 32°, pour on each an equal weight of water at 172°, and you will find that in the first case the ice will be melted, but the temperature will remain at 32° or thereabouts, while the temperature of the water in the other vessel will have risen to 100° or thereabouts, being as near as possible the half of the excess of the temperature of the hot water, 140° over that of the cold, namely 70° added to 32°, the original temperature. Now, what has become of the heat which was added to the ice, and is apparently lost?—it is absorbed by the ice in its passage to the fluid state; so that water may be said to be a compound of ice and caloric.
Again, take 10 ounces of water at about 50°, and add 1 oz. of water at 212°, and the temperature of the mixture will be about 66°; then condense some steam at 212°, into another 10 oz. of water until it has become 11 oz., and you will find the temperature will be nearly 212°. Why does the ounce of steam at 212° raise the temperature of the water so much higher than the ounce of water at the same temperature? Obviously because it contains hidden in its substance a vast quantity of caloric, not to be detected by the thermometer; in fact, that steam is a compound of water and caloric, as water is a compound of ice and caloric; and this caloric which exists, more or less, in all bodies without producing any obvious effect, is called latent caloric, from the Latin verb lateo, to lie hid. The quantity of caloric thus absorbed as it were by various bodies, differs for each body, and for the same body in different forms, as mentioned above.
EXPANSION.
As a general rule, all bodies, whether solid, liquid, or gaseous, are expanded by caloric. This may be shown by experiments in each form of matter.
Have a small iron rod made, which when cold just passes through a hole in a plate of metal; heat it, and it will no longer pass; after a time the rod will return to its former temperature, and then will go through the hole as before. The rod increases in length as well as width; if you have a gauge divided into 1/100 of an inch, and place the rod in it when cold, noting its position, on heating it will extend to a greater length in the gauge, returning to its former place when cool.
The effect of caloric in causing fluids to expand is actually employed as a measure of quantity in the thermometer, the rise of the fluid in the tube when heated depending on the increased bulk of the fluid occasioned by the addition of caloric. The same fact is to be noticed every day when the cook fills the kettle, and places it on the fire. As the water becomes warmer it expands, that is, takes up more room than it did before, and the water escapes by slow degrees, increasing as the heat increases, up to the point of boiling, when a sudden commotion takes place from the condensation of a portion of the water into steam.
But it is in the form of vapour or gas, (which by the bye is not the same thing,[9]) that the expansive force of caloric is most obvious. The gigantic powers of the steam-engine depend entirely on the tendency of vapour to expand on the addition of caloric; and this force of expansion appears to have no limit; boilers made of iron plates an inch or even more in thickness, and the buildings or ships containing them, having been torn to pieces and scattered in all directions by the expansive power of steam. Take a bladder, and fill it about half full of air, and tie the neck securely; upon holding it to the fire it will swell out, and become quite tense from the expansion of the contained air.
[9] It may be well to state here, that by vapour is generally understood the aërial form of a substance usually existing in a solid or fluid form at ordinary temperatures; as the vapour of iodine, a solid; of mercury, water, spirits, and other fluids: while the term gas is applied to those bodies usually known in the aërial state; thus oxygen, nitrogen, carbonic acid, hydrogen, &c. &c., are called gases. It is, however, but an arbitrary distinction; for many of these gases have, by the combined influence of cold and powerful pressure, been converted into fluids, and even solids—carbonic acid gas for instance!
The principal source of caloric is the sun, whose beams, diffused through all nature by the refractive property of the atmosphere, are the source of vitality both to vegetables and animals, and when concentrated by a large convex lens, produce the most intense heat, sufficient to light a piece of diamond, and melt platinum. Caloric is also produced or evolved by combustion, by friction, percussion, chemical combination, electricity, and galvanism.
The evolution of heat by friction may be witnessed daily in a thousand instances. Lucifer matches are lighted by rubbing the highly inflammable substances with which they are tipped against a piece of sand-paper. Nearly all savage people procure fire by rubbing a piece of hard wood violently against a softer piece. The axle-trees of steam-engines, and even of carriages, have been known to be so heated by friction as to endanger burning the carriage; and it is very usual to be obliged to pour a quantity of cold water on the iron axle of the carriages of an express train after an hour of constant and rapid work. If you merely rub the blade of a knife rapidly on a piece of wood, it will become hot enough to burn your hand.
Percussion is merely a more energetic kind of friction, and is often resorted to by the blacksmith to light his furnace. He places a nail or other piece of soft iron on his anvil, and beats it rapidly with the hammer, when it becomes actually red hot. The production of sparks by striking flint against steel, or two pieces of flint one against the other, are familiar instances of heat produced by percussion.
One of the most powerful means of producing heat is the process of combustion.
Combustion, as the word imports, is the burning together of two or more substances, a chemical union of oxygen generally with carbon and hydrogen in some shape or other. In our ordinary fires we burn coal, a hydro-carbon as it is called; and the gas which is now so universally used for the purpose of illumination, is a compound of the same bodies—so wax, tallow, oil of various kinds, both of animal and vegetable origin, are all hydro-carbons.
On the application of a sufficient heat, and a free access of atmospheric air, or of some other gas containing oxygen in a certain state of combination, these bodies take fire, and continue to burn either with flame, or a red or even white heat without flame, until they are consumed; that is, until they have entered into new combinations with the oxygen, and are converted into carbonic acid and water, the carbon forming the first product, the hydrogen the other.
The following experiment shows the production of heat by chemical action alone. Bruise some fresh prepared crystals of nitrate of copper, spread them over a piece of tin-foil, sprinkle them with a little water; then fold up the foil tightly as rapidly as possible, and in a minute or two it will become red-hot, the tin apparently burning away. This heat is produced by the energetic action of the tin on the nitrate of copper, taking away its oxygen in order to unite with the nitric acid, for which, as well as for the oxygen, the tin has a much greater affinity than the copper has.
Combustion without flame may be shown in a very elegant and agreeable manner, by making a coil of platinum wire by twisting it round the stem of a tobacco-pipe, or any cylindrical body, for a dozen times or so, leaving about an inch straight, which should be inserted into the wick of a spirit-lamp; light the lamp, and after it has burnt for a minute or two extinguish the flame quickly; the wire will soon become red hot, and, if kept from draughts of air, will continue to burn until all the spirit is consumed. Spongy platinum, as it is called, answers rather better than wire, and has been employed in the formation of fumigators for the drawing-room, in which, instead of pure spirit, some perfume, such as lavender water, is used; by its combustion an agreeable odour is diffused through the apartment. These little lamps were much in vogue a few years ago, but are now nearly out of fashion.
Experiments on combustion might be multiplied almost to any amount, but the above will be sufficient for the present. When we come to treat of the properties of the gases and some other substances, we shall have occasion to recur to this subject.
The production of caloric by chemical combination may be exhibited by mixing carefully one part of oil of vitriol with two of water, when sufficient heat will be produced to boil some water in a thin and narrow tube, which may be used as a rod to stir the mixture.
The production of heat by electric and galvanic agency belongs to another subject. I will content myself with saying here, that these forces afford the most powerful aid in decomposing and uniting various bodies, and that it was by the immense power of a battery of 2,000 pairs of plates, belonging to the Royal Institution in London, that Sir H. Davy discovered the metallic bases of the alkalies and earths.