You cannot exactly say absorbs latent heat, as the heat becomes latent only on being confined in the body; but you may say, generally, that bodies, in passing from a solid to a liquid form, or from the liquid state to that of vapour, absorb heat; and that when the reverse takes place, heat is disengaged.[*]
EMILY.
We can now, I think, account for the ether boiling, and the water freezing in vacuo, at the same temperature.[†]
MRS. B.
Let me hear how you explain it.
EMILY.
The latent heat, which the water gave out in freezing, was immediately absorbed by the ether, during its conversion into vapour; and therefore, from a latent state in one liquid, it passed into a latent state in the other.
MRS. B.
But this only partly accounts for the result of the experiment; it remains to be explained why the temperature of the ether, while in a state of ebullition, is brought down to the freezing temperature of the water.—It is because the ether, during its evaporation, reduces its own temperature, in the same proportion as that of the water, by converting its free caloric into latent heat: so that, though one liquid boils, and the other freezes, their temperatures remain in a state of equilibrium.
EMILY.