(3.)
HEAT A KIND OF MOTION.
Heat has been defined in the foregoing section as a motion of the molecules or atoms of a body; but though the evidence in favour of this view is at present overwhelming, I do not ask the reader to accept it as a certainty, if he feels sceptically disposed. In this case, I would only ask him to accept it as a symbol. Regarded as a mere physical image, a kind of paper-currency of the mind, convertible, in due time, into the gold of truth, the hypothesis will be found exceedingly useful.
All known bodies possess more or less of this molecular motion, and all bodies are communicating it to the ether in which they are immersed. Ice possesses it. Ice before it melts attains a temperature of 32° Fahr., but the substance in winter often possesses a temperature far below 32°, so that in rising to 32° it is warmed. In experimenting with ice I have often had occasion to cool it to 100° and more below the freezing point, and to warm it afterwards up to 32°.
If then we stand before a wall of ice, the wall radiates heat to us, and we also radiate heat to it; but the quantity which we radiate being greater than that which the ice radiates, we lose more than we gain, and are consequently chilled. If, on the contrary, we stand before a warm stove, a system of exchanges also takes place; but here the quantity we receive is in excess of the quantity lost, and we are warmed by the difference.
In like manner the earth radiates heat by day and by night into space, and against the sun, moon, and stars. By day, however, the quantity received is greater than the quantity lost, and the earth is warmed; by night the conditions are reversed; the earth radiates more heat than is sent to her by the moon and stars, and she is consequently cooled.
But here an important point is to be noted:—the earth receives the heat of the sun, moon, and stars, in great part as luminous heat, but she gives it out as obscure heat. I do not now speak of the heat reflected by the earth into space, as the light of the moon is to us; but of the heat which, after it has been absorbed by the earth, and has contributed to warm it, is radiated into space, as if the earth itself were its independent source. Thus we may properly say that the heat radiated from the earth is different in quality from that which the earth has received from the sun.
QUALITIES OF HEAT.
In one particular especially does this difference of quality show itself; besides being non-luminous, the heat radiated from the earth is more easily intercepted and absorbed by almost all transparent substances. A vast portion of the sun's rays, for example, can pass instantaneously through a thick sheet of water; gunpowder could easily be fired by the heat of the sun's rays converged by passing through a thick water lens; the drops upon leaves in greenhouses often act as lenses, and cause the sun to burn the leaves upon which they rest. But with regard to the rays of heat emanating from an obscure source, they are all absorbed by a layer of water less than the 20th of an inch in thickness: water is opaque to such rays, and cuts them off almost as effectually as a metallic screen. The same is true of other liquids, and also of many transparent solids.