Abstract
The word heat, in its most common acceptation, denotes a certain sensation, which is well known to every person. The cause of this sensation, to avoid ambiguity, ought to have been distinguished by a name different from that which is used to point out its effect. Various authors indeed, who have treated on the subject of heat, have occasionally added certain terms to distinguish their conceptions, such as, latent, absolute, specific, sensible heat; while others have adopted the new expressions of caloric, and the matter of heat. None of these descriptive appellations however would have completely answered my purpose. I might, as in the preceding papers, have used the name radiant heat, which has been introduced by a celebrated author, and which certainly is not very different from the expressions I have now adopted; but, by calling the subject of my reseal ches, the rays that occasion heat, I cannot be misunderstood as meaning that these rays themselves are heat; nor do I in any respect engage myself to shew in what manner they produce heat. From what has been said it follows, that any objections that may be alleged, from the supposed agency of heat in other circumstances than in its state of radiance, or heat-making rays, cannot be admitted against my experiments. For, notwithstanding I may be inclined to believe that all phænomena in which heat is concerned, such as the expansion of bodies, fluidity, congelation, fermentation, friction, &
c
. as well as heat in its various states of being latent, specific, absolute, or sensible, may be explained on the principle of heat-making rays, and vibrations occasioned by them in the parts of bodies; yet this is not intended, at present, to be any part of what I shall endeavour to establish.