The laws of gases are founded upon the fact that in gases there is a necessary interdependence between heat and pressure, and the starting points adopted by science for calculating this interdependence in them are 0° of heat and 1 atmosphere of pressure at 0° of heat. Obeying these laws, we have argued, from the beginning of our operations, that heat requires something to hold it in, and that the nebula from which the Solar system was formed--if it was so formed--could only contain heat in proportion to its density; that is being a gas, or vapour in the form of a gas, it could not contain, i.e. hold in it, more than 2° of positive heat when its density was equal to the pressure belonging to 1 atmosphere of a gas; all as shown in the most irrefragable manner in this chapter and in the accompanying Table III.
A gas can be easily compressed in a close vessel to a pressure of 100 atmospheres, which would enable it to hold 100° of heat due to that compression; in fact, were it compressed to that degree by a piston in a cylinder, without any loss of heat, it would be raised to that heat by that act alone, but that would raise it to only 102° instead of 374° of what is called absolute temperature according to present usage; because as a gas it could not hold any more heat at that pressure. It is, therefore, evident that this _usage_ has not been derived from the laws of gases. Neither has it been derived from the other two states of liquid and solid to which all gases can be reduced, as can be very easily demonstrated.
To cool steam at atmospheric pressure from its gaseous to its liquid state 519° of heat of one kind and another--as measured by the Centigrade thermometer--have to be abstracted from it, which leaves the liquid at its boiling point of 100°--a quantity that has been arbitrarily adopted to mark the difference between the freezing and boiling points of this liquid. In order, after this, to reduce the liquid, now water, to the freezing, or what is called 0° of heat, these 100 degrees of heat have to be extracted from it, which is not very difficult to do because the heat put into it arbitrarily can be extracted from it; but if it is now wanted to change the steam from its liquid to its solid state, the work, or operation assumes a very different character, because heat cannot be extracted from a substance which contains none at all. It is well known that 80° of heat are required to change one pound of ice at 0° into a pound of water also at 0° of heat; but it is equally well known that 80° of heat cannot be taken out of the pound of water which has none in it; how then, is the water to be changed into ice?