The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1868-07-12

it will be discovered some day, and thei
we shall see men and women eating thei
bushel or peck of coal for lunch when the,
can get nothing BETTER"
Jacks mother shuddered.
you know what heat is !"
"Of course l do" she said, somewhat
scornfully: cit is fire."
gether by the help of water power" an
swered Jack, "you can heat large room
as well as stove could do it. And if YOU
rub them together in box surrounded by
water, by the help of horse power, you car
make the water boil. Steel bars are welded
because further application of fire would
spoil the quality of the steel and under
the blows of this hammer the bars get red
hot; or make a hole in thick block OF
wood with a gimlet, and the gimlet will get
SO hot that it Will almost burn your cheeks.
Here is plenty of heat, you see, and no fire
at ALL"
~ remember; l have read about it,
said his mother, picking up her iron. Heat
is fluid called calOric, and all this rubbing
and pounding squeezes it out, suppose"
eff that is the case, {" replied Jack. /" after
great while the caloric would begin to run
low, and the heat would be less and less,
till by-and-by there was none. But you
can rub your iron as long as you like and
it will always give you as much heat as it
did in the beginning. Now how do you
explain that ~
Jacks mother looked puzzled.
Here is another thing" pursued Jack,
with warmth. "Say we are rubbing the
pieces Of iron together by the help of water
. falling on the wheel. A mechanic could
measure and find in round numbers lust
how much force there was at the wheel and
philosophers have measured heat also. One
degree of heat always will raise one pound
just SO many feet. Eleven hundred and
twenty, l believe. Now, then, the force
turns the wheel and is gone. You can never
find it any more; but you know how much
it was in numbers. Now gather up all your
new heat and measure that. One always
equals, the other. just so much force or
motion as you had, just so much heat You
have got always"
81 don't see anything in that" returned
his mother.
" But look here,'' insisted Jack. "You
know how stiff and hard iron is. All it's
particles are held tight by what we call at
traction of cohesion. Now, heat your iron.
What does it do 1t expands. Its particles
pull so hard to get away from each other
that the iron grows larger. Don't you see,
then, that what heat really gives iron, or
any other substance, is motion ~
"You mean to say, then, that this fire in
the range is motion 7"
"G Si , do; The liveliest kind"
DOn'C Ucl1OVO
"But will prove it to you. When you
filed the tea-kettle with cold water the
water was still, was it not p
"Why, of course it was"
"And as it began to grow warmer it be-
gan to move, did it not And the hotter it
swelled, till it fairly shook the kettle lid
and at last, as you would say, it grew 80
hot, OF, as should say, it got into such flu
rious motion, that the particles of water ac-
tually succeeded in tearing themselves
apart and flying off in tiny atoms of steam.
Now if the heat in that water is not motion,
what is it Z"
Jacks mother made no answer-perhaps
because she was obliged just then to look
after the peas and asparagus.
"There is another thing remarked the
relentless Jack. what do you think your
dinner really isl"
"Why lamb, peas, and asparagus, to be
suren
"That is what it is just now; but it is
chemical combination, made out OF oxygen,
hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and ammonia" ;,
81 believe you want to turn me sick"
remarked his mother, who was really pale.
81 do not see why il should. Your stom-
ach, all our stomachs, are chemical labora-
tories in miniature, vow know"
"Now, Jack, if there is thing despise,
. it is chemistry. always do think of smells
and blue fingers"
"But it is a beautiful process" continued
Jack. "a ray of light leaves the sun and
travels over one hundred and ninety thou
sand miles second. Whenever light strikes
against a solid body, like force, it disap-
pears. But examine the solid body and you
: will find heat, setting its particles in mo
ton. Now at the time that the story of our
dinner commences there We're, of course,
many seed in the earth-say the seed OF
tire peas, and of the grass that the lamb
fed on. The ray of light enters the germ
and becomes heat. The germ is the master
builder; the seed is the store-house; the
heat is the workman-a little working
chemist, in fact In the seed store house is
something like insoluble starch and sort
of ferment, which the heat unites and makes
nnd nils alan in the store house. begins to