Chemistry no mystery, or, A lecturer's bequest. Being the subject-matter of a course of lectures, delivered by an old philosopher, and taken in short-hand by one of the audience, whose name is not known / Arranged from the original manuscript, and rev., by John Scoffern.

  • Scoffern, J. (John), 1814-1882.
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Chemistry no mystery, or, A lecturer's bequest. Being the subject-matter of a course of lectures, delivered by an old philosopher, and taken in short-hand by one of the audience, whose name is not known / Arranged from the original manuscript, and rev., by John Scoffern. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    LECTURE II. ABOUT THE IMPONDERABLES, OR THINGS WHICH HAVE NO WEIGHT. Perhaps my hearers will startle a little, when I tell them I am going to describe the nature of the imponderable agents. Imponderable!—what a long word ! Well, I grant that imponderable is a long word, but nevertheless a very easy word to understand; it merely means some- thing which has no weight. If I were to give you a pair of scales and weights, and tell you to weigh a spoon, a fork, or a poker, you could do so easily enough; but how you would laugh if I were to tell you to weigh a sun-beam, or the light of a candle, or the heat which is given out by the fire. It would be a ridiculous request for me to make indeed, and I merely suppose myself doing so, just to fix a fact in your memory. Light and heat cannot be weighed, neither can another substance, termed electricity.—Consequently