Conversations on Chemistry Part 5

MRS. B.

The light emitted by the latter is so intimately connected with the chemical history of combustion, that I must defer all explanation of it till we come to the examination of that process, which is one of the most interesting in chemical science.

Light is an agent capable of producing various chemical changes. It is essential to the welfare both of the animal and vegetable kingdoms; for men and plants grow pale and sickly if deprived of its salutary influence. It is likewise remarkable for its property of destroying colour, which renders it of great consequence in the process of bleaching.

EMILY.

Is it not singular that light, which in studying optics we were taught to consider as the source and origin of colours, should have also the power of destroying them?

CAROLINE.

It is a fact, however, that we every day experience; you know how it fades the colours of linens and silks.

EMILY.

Certainly. And I recollect that endive is made to grow white instead of green, by being covered up so as to exclude the light. But by what means does light produce these effects?

MRS. B.

This I cannot attempt to explain to you until you have obtained a further knowledge of chemistry. As the chemical properties of light can be accounted for only in their reference to compound bodies, it would be useless to detain you any longer on this subject; we may therefore pa.s.s on to the examination of heat, or caloric, with which we are somewhat better acquainted.

HEAT and LIGHT may be always distinguished by the different sensations they produce, _Light_ affects the sense of sight; _Caloric_ that of feeling; the one produces _Vision_, the other the sensation of _Heat_.

Caloric is found to exist in a variety of forms or modifications, and I think it will be best to consider it under the two following heads, viz.

1. FREE OR RADIANT CALORIC.

2. COMBINED CALORIC.

The first, FREE or RADIANT CALORIC, is also called HEAT OF TEMPERATURE; it comprehends all heat which is perceptible to the senses, and affects the thermometer.

EMILY.

You mean such as the heat of the sun, of fire, of candles, of stoves; in short, of every thing that burns?

MRS. B.

And likewise of things that do not burn, as, for instance, the warmth of the body; in a word, all heat that is _sensible_, whatever may be its degree, or the source from which it is derived.

CAROLINE.

What then are the other modifications of caloric? It must be a strange kind of heat that cannot be perceived by our senses.

MRS. B.

None of the modifications of caloric should properly be called _heat_; for heat, strictly speaking, is the sensation produced by caloric, on animated bodies; this word, therefore, in the accurate language of science, should be confined to express the sensation. But custom has adapted it likewise to inanimate matter, and we say _the heat of an oven_, _the heat of the sun_, without any reference to the sensation which they are capable of exciting.

It was in order to avoid the confusion which arose from thus confounding the cause and effect, that modern chemists adopted the new word _caloric_, to denote the principle which produces heat; yet they do not always, in compliance with their own language, limit the word _heat_ to the expression of the sensation, since they still frequently employ it in reference to the other modifications of caloric which are quite independent of sensation.

CAROLINE.

But you have not yet explained to us what these other modifications of caloric are.

MRS. B.

Because you are not acquainted with the properties of free caloric, and you know that we have agreed to proceed with regularity.

One of the most remarkable properties of free caloric is its power of _dilating_ bodies. This fluid is so extremely subtle, that it enters and pervades all bodies whatever, forces itself between their particles, and not only separates them, but frequently drives them asunder to a considerable distance from each other. It is thus that caloric dilates or expands a body so as to make it occupy a greater s.p.a.ce than it did before.

EMILY.

The effect it has on bodies, therefore, is directly contrary to that of the attraction of cohesion; the one draws the particles together, the other drives them asunder.

MRS. B.

Precisely. There is a continual struggle between the attraction of aggregation, and the expansive power of caloric; and from the action of these two opposite forces, result all the various forms of matter, or degrees of consistence, from the solid, to the liquid and aeriform state. And accordingly we find that most bodies are capable of pa.s.sing from one of these forms to the other, merely in consequence of their receiving different quant.i.ties of caloric.

CAROLINE.

That is very curious; but I think I understand the reason of it. If a great quant.i.ty of caloric is added to a solid body, it introduces itself between the particles in such a manner as to overcome, in a considerable degree, the attraction of cohesion; and the body, from a solid, is then converted into a fluid.

MRS. B.

This is the case whenever a body is fused or melted; but if you add caloric to a liquid, can you tell me what is the consequence?

CAROLINE.

The caloric forces itself in greater abundance between the particles of the fluid, and drives them to such a distance from each other, that their attraction of aggregation is wholly destroyed: the liquid is then transformed into vapour.

MRS. B.

Very well; and this is precisely the case with boiling water, when it is converted into steam or vapour, and with all bodies that a.s.sume an aeriform state.

EMILY.

I do not well understand the word aeriform?

MRS. B.

Any elastic fluid whatever, whether it be merely vapour or permanent air, is called aeriform.

But each of these various states, solid, liquid, and aeriform, admit of many different degrees of density, or consistence, still arising (chiefly at least) from the different quant.i.ties of caloric the bodies contain. Solids are of various degrees of density, from that of gold, to that of a thin jelly. Liquids, from the consistence of melted glue, or melted metals, to that of ether, which is the lightest of all liquids.

The different elastic fluids (with which you are not yet acquainted) are susceptible of no less variety in their degrees of density.

EMILY.

But does not every individual body also admit of different degrees of consistence, without changing its state?