Quelques remarques sur la chaleur, et sur l' action des corps qui l'interceptent

Abstract

The remarks here brought forward relate chiefly to Dr. Herschel’s experiments on the solar and terrestrial rays that occasion heat, pub­lished in the Philosophical Transactions for the year 1800, and are meant to rectify some anomalies which appear in their results. The paper consists of two parts: the first being the observations on Dr. Herschel’s experiments, and some new ones, with inferences deduced from them; and the second the exposition of a theory, which the author thinks may reconcile all contradictions. In the first part he sets out with briefly stating the manner in which Dr. Herschel conducted the experiments he made, in order to estimate, by the indications of different thermometers, the quantity of heat transmitted through various substances, compared with the heat afforded by direct rays from different luminous bodies, or more properly sources of heat. Here the author soon starts a difficulty concerning the mode of estimating the intercepting power of the substances used in the experiments. As these experiments consist of a series of observations made progressively at intervals of one mi­nute between each other, it follows that the ratio Dr. Herschel adopted between the heat produced by direct rays, and those transmitted through coloured media, is not, as he imagined, a constant proportion, he having uniformly deduced his inferences from the differences be­tween the initial and the final degrees of heat; whereas, had he at­tended to the intermediate observations, he would have found that each of them would have afforded a different ratio.