Since the metal used in this experiment showed a capacity for heat which was to that of water as 0.11 to 1, it is evident that this amount of heat would have been sufficient to raise a mass of the same metal 46,165 pounds in weight through 180 degrees of Fahrenheit’s scale, or from the temperature of melting ice to that of boiling water. This amount of heat would be sufficient to melt a mass of metal sixteen times heavier than that which I used in the experiment. Is it at all conceivable that such an enormous quantity of caloric could really be present in this body? But even this supposition would be by no means sufficient for the explanation of the fact in question, as I have shown by a decisive experiment that the capacity of the metal for heat has not sensibly altered. Whence, then, came the caloric which the apparatus furnished in such abundance? I leave this question to be answered by those persons who believe in the actual existence of caloric. In my opinion, I have made it sufficiently evident that it was impossible for it to come from the metallic bodies which were rubbed together, and I am absolutely unable to imagine how it can have come from any other object in the neighborhood of the apparatus, for all these objects received their heat constantly from the apparatus itself. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 24: From _An Enquiry Concerning the Source of Heat Excited by Friction_ (1798)--_Transactions of the Royal Society of London_.] XXII JOHN DALTON 1766-1844 _John Dalton, son of a weaver, was born in Cumberland, England, September 5, 1766. After an early life spent in teaching in elementary schools, in 1793 he became a teacher of mathematics and philosophy at New College, Manchester. He began his researches into the combination of gases in 1800 and discovered that gases expanded equally with the same pressure and heat. He announced his discovery in a paper read before the Manchester Society in 1801. From further experiments he derived his theory that gases combined with one another in definite proportions, and evolved his atomic theory to explain the results. Awarded the King’s medal in 1822, he was further honored by a pension granted in 1833. He died May 27, 1844._ THE ATOMIC THEORY[25]