How to become an inventor

by Aaron A. Warford

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 vapor or gas (which, by the bye, is not the same thing), that the expansive force of caloric is most obvious. The gigantic powers of the steam-engine depend entirely on the tendency of vapor 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.

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 productions 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. The 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 nitrate 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 spirits, some perfume, such as lavender water, is used; by its combustion an agreeable odor is diffused through the apartment. These little lamps were much in vogue a few years ago, but are now nearly out of fashion.