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Light and Its Phenomena: Heat

There can be no reasonable doubt that Heat is a mere effect of atomic motion, and that various intensities by percussions, or motions applied, transferred to various atoms and to various combinations, is the cause of all the phenomena of heat. The sources of Heat, or atomic motion, are the great motions of the Earth, acting on its own parts; and the solar heat acting on the surface, so as to convert fluids into gas, and assist the evolution of germs. The three states of matter are immediately connected with degrees of Heat. 1. The solid state supposes no heat, or only such a degree as excites atoms in the pores, and coincides with the general internal heat. 2. The fluid state is an effect of great excitement, by which the atoms in the pores break up crystalline structures, and produce the middle state of fluidity. 3. The fluid state would, however, become at once gaseous, but for the elasticity of previously-created gas, which obstructs the radiation of the fluid atoms, till acted upon by artificial heat up to 212°, or naturally by the reiteration of solar heat. The fluid atoms, in rising into space, are so re-acted upon by the gas in the space, that they are turned into circular orbits, extending great motion through the atmosphere, which motion, absorbed and re-fixed in respiration, etc., is the source of all organic life and power.

The knowledge of heat, its causes and accidents, is essential to the study of chemistry or the science of atoms, for we have no access to atoms except by heat in some of its forms. The leverage of sharp tools is not fine enough: but in moving atoms by heat, or heating them by motion, for the terms are equivalent, we disturb their relations, separate or decompose them, and thus are enabled to form new combinations.