Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 / In Which the Elements of that Science Are Familiarly Explained and Illustrated by Experiments

by Mrs. Marcet

MRS. B.

This I cannot attempt to explain to you until you have obtained a further knowledge of chemistry. As the chemical properties of light can be accounted for only in their reference to compound bodies, it would be useless to detain you any longer on this subject; we may therefore pass on to the examination of heat, or caloric, with which we are somewhat better acquainted.

Heat and Light may be always distinguished by the different sensations they produce, Light affects the sense of sight; Caloric that of feeling; the one produces Vision, the other the sensation of Heat.

Caloric is found to exist in a variety of forms or modifications, and I think it will be best to consider it under the two following heads, viz.

1. FREE OR RADIANT CALORIC.

2. COMBINED CALORIC.

The first, FREE or RADIANT CALORIC, is also called HEAT OF TEMPERATURE; it comprehends all heat which is perceptible to the senses, and affects the thermometer.

EMILY.

You mean such as the heat of the sun, of fire, of candles, of stoves; in short, of every thing that burns?

MRS. B.