I am now going to shew you that we can obtain heat, not by chemical affinity alone, but by the pressure of air. Suppose I take a pellet of cotton and moisten it with a little ether, and put it into a glass tube (fig. 31), and then take a piston and press it down suddenly, I expect I shall be able to burn a little of that ether in the vessel. It wants a suddenness of pressure, or we shall not do what we require. [The piston was forcibly pressed down, when a flame, due to the combustion of the ether, was visible in the lower part of the syringe.] All we want is to get a little ether in vapour, and give fresh air each time, and so we may go on again and again getting heat enough by the compression of air to fire the ether-vapour.
This, then, I think, will be sufficient, accompanied with all you have previously seen, to shew you how we procure heat. And now for the effects of this power. We need not consider many of them on the present occasion, because when you have seen its power of changing ice into water and water into steam, you have seen the two principal results of the application of heat. I want you now to see how it expands all bodies--all bodies but one, and that under limited circumstances. Mr. Anderson will hold a lamp under that retort, and you will see the moment he does so that the air will issue abundantly from the neck, which is under water, because the heat which he applies to the air causes it to expand. And here is a brass rod (fig. 32) which goes through that hole, and fits also accurately into this gauge; but if I make it warm with this spirit-lamp, it will only go in the gauge or through the hole with difficulty; and if I were to put it into boiling-water, it would not go through at all. Again, as soon as the heat escapes from bodies they collapse. See how the air is contracting in the vessel, now that Mr. Anderson has taken away his lamp: the stem of it is filling with water. Notice, too, now, that although I cannot get the tube through this hole or into the gauge, the moment I cool it by dipping it into water, it goes through with perfect facility; so that we have a perfect proof of this power of heat to contract and expand bodies.
I wonder whether we shall be too deep to-day or not. Remember that we spoke of the attraction by gravitation of _all_ bodies to all bodies by their simple approach. Remember that we spoke of the attraction of particles of the _same_ kind to each other,--that power which keeps them together in masses,--iron attracted to iron, brass to brass, or water to water. Remember that we found, on looking into water, that there were particles of two different kinds attracted to each other; and this was a great step beyond the first simple attraction of gravitation; because here we deal with attraction between _different_ kinds of matter. The hydrogen could attract the oxygen, and reduce it to water, but it could not attract any of its own particles; so that there we obtained a first indication of the existence of _two_ attractions.