A. By touching the metal collar into which the wooden handle is fixed: though the wooden handle is quite cold, this metal collar is intensely hot.
Q. Why do persons use paper or woollen kettle-holders to take hold of a kettle with?
A. Paper and woollen are both very bad conductors of heat; and, therefore, the heat of the kettle does not readily pass through them to the hand.
Q. Does the heat of the boiling kettle never get through the woollen or paper kettle-holder?
A. Yes; but though the kettle-holder became as hot as the kettle itself, it would never feel so hot.
Q. Why would not the kettle-holder feel so hot as the kettle, when it really is of the same temperature?
A. Because (being a very bad conductor) it disposes of its heat so slowly, that it is scarcely perceptible; but metal (being an excellent conductor) disposes of its heat so quickly, that the sudden influx is painful.
Q. Why then does hot metal feel so much more intensely warm than hot wool?