The wool, because, although the metal conducts heat more rapidly, to a substance in contact with it, it does not radiate heat as well as a black and rough substance.
132. Why do iron articles feel intensely cold in winter?
Because iron is one of the best conductors, and draws off heat from the hand very rapidly.
133. What is the cause of the sensation called cold?
When we feel cold, heat is being drawn off from our bodies.
134. What is the cause of the sensation called heat?
When we feel hot, our bodies are absorbing heat from external causes.
The condition here implied is that of health, and of ordinary circumstances. A person in a condition of fever, suffering from intense heat arising from a diseased state of the blood, could not be said to be absorbing heat. Nor could such a description apply to a person who, by a very rapid walk, has raised the temperature of his body considerably above its natural state, by the internal combustion which has already been described. A person feeling hot in bed, from excessive clothes, feels hot from the development of heat internally, which is not conducted away with sufficient rapidity to maintain the natural temperature of the body.
135. If a person, sitting before a fire-place, without a fire, were to set one foot upon a rug, and the other upon the stone hearth, which would feel the colder?
The foot on the stone, because stone is a good conductor, and would conduct the warmth of the foot away from it.