“The sheets,” said Rollo, “a great deal.”
“And the reason why they would feel coldest must be,” said Mr. Holiday, “that they conduct away the heat from your hand the fastest, which shows that they are better conductors of heat. If you were to put your hand upon iron in such a room, it would feel colder still, because the iron is a better conductor of heat than the vegetable fibres which the sheet is manufactured from.
“In the same manner,” continued Mr. Holiday, “a bare wooden floor feels colder than one with a carpet upon it. Now, in the case of a bare floor, it is vegetable fibre which conveys away the heat, and in the carpet, if it is a woollen carpet, it is animal fibre. But a stone floor would feel colder than a wooden one.”
“A painted floor is very cold,” said Rollo’s mother.
“Yes,” said Mr. Holiday; “paint is made of some metallic preparation generally, which is a better conductor than wood. All the metals are much better conductors than wood. That is the reason why they have wooden handles to tea-pots and other such vessels, because a handle of metal would conduct so much heat from the hot water to the hand, that we could not hold it.”
“Yes, sir,” said Rollo; “and the handle to the little tea-kettle at the tavern was a wooden one. I did not know what it was for.”
“It was to keep the heat from coming to your hand when you pour out the water. If the handle had been of copper, it would have been necessary to have a non-conductor to put around it, to keep the heat from coming out of the handle.”
“I never heard of such a thing,” said Rollo.
“Haven’t you?” said his father. “They make them sometimes, and it is a very ingenious contrivance.”
“How do they make them?” said Rollo.