Conversations on chemistry Author:Bryant Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: heated water is comparatively trifling. But we have dwelt so long Ob the subject of free caloric, that we must reserve the other modifications of that agent to o... more »ur next meeting, when we shall endeavor to proceed more rapidly. CONVERSATION IV. OR COMBINED CALORIC, COMPREHENDING SPECIFIC AND LATENT . . HEAT. ' . ' ' V I . . .-.' - J Mrs. B. We are now to examine the other modifications of caloric. Caroline. I am very curious to know of what nature they can be; for I have no nation of any kind of heat that is not perceptible to the senses. Mrs. B. In order to enable you to understand them, it will be xvecessaiy to enter into some previous explanations. It has been discovered by modern chemists, that bodies of a different nature, heated to the same temperature, do not contain the same quantity of caloric. Caroline. Jfow could that be ascertained ? Have you not told us (hat it is impossible to discover the absolute quantity of caloric which bodies contain ? Mrs. B. True; but at the, same time I said that we were enabled to form a judgment of the proportion which bodies have to each other in this respect. True, it is found that, in order to raise the temperature of different bodies the same number of degrees, different quantities of caloric are required for each of them. If for instance, you place a pound of lead, a pound of chalk, and a pound of milk, ui a hot oven, they will be gradually heated to the temperature of the oven; but the lead will attain it first, the chalk next, and the milk last. Caroline. That is a natural consequence of their different balks; the lead being the smallest body, will be heated soonest, and the milk, which is the largest, will require'the longest time. Mrs. B. That explanation will not do; for if the lead be the le...« less