If this be understood, it will be at once seen that gravity may in this sense be said to be convertible into heat; that it is in reality no more an outstanding and inconvertible agent, as it is sometimes stated to be, than chemical affinity. By the exertion of a certain pull, through a certain space, a body is caused to clash with a certain definite velocity against the earth. Heat is thereby developed, and this is the only sense in which gravity can be said to be converted into heat. In no case is the force which produces the motion annihilated or changed into anything else. The mutual attraction of the earth and weight exists when they are in contact as when they were separate; but the ability of that attraction to employ itself in the production of motion does not exist. The transformation, in this case, is easily followed by the mind's eye. First, the weight as a whole is set in motion by the attraction of gravity. This motion of the mass is arrested by collision with the earth; being broken up into molecular tremors, to which we give the name of heat. And when we reverse the process, and employ those tremors of heat to raise a weight, as is done through the intermediation of an elastic fluid in the steam-engine, a certain definite portion of the molecular motion is destroyed in raising the weight. In this sense, and this sense only, can the heat be said to be converted into gravity, or more correctly, into potential energy of gravity. It is not that the destruction of the heat has created any new attraction, but simply that the old attraction has now a power conferred upon it, of exerting a certain definite pull in the interval between the starting-point of the falling weight and its collision with the earth. So also as regards magnetic attraction: when a sphere of iron placed at some distance from a magnet rushes towards the magnet, and has its motion stopped by collision, an effect mechanically the same as that produced by the attraction of gravity occurs. The magnetic attraction generates the motion of the mass, and the stoppage of that motion produces heat. In this sense, and in this sense only, is there a transformation of magnetic work into heat. And if by the mechanical action of heat, brought to bear by means of a suitable machine, the sphere be torn from the magnet and again placed at a distance, a power of exerting a pull through that distance, and producing a new motion of the sphere, is thereby conferred upon the magnet; in this sense, and in this sense only, is the heat converted into magnetic potential energy.