changed into the other. It is well known that it takes a good deal of heat to convert a kilogramme of ice into water, and that when the ice is melted the temperature of the water is not perceptibly higher than that of the ice. It is equally well known that it takes a great deal of heat to convert a kilogramme of boiling water into steam, and that when the transformation is accomplished, the steam produced is not perceptibly hotter than the boiling water. In such cases the heat is said to become latent.
Now, in both these cases, but more obviously in the last, we may suppose that the heat has not had its usual office to perform, but that, instead of increasing the motion of the molecules of water, it has spent its energy in tearing them asunder from each other, against the force of cohesion which binds them together.
Indeed, we know as a matter of fact that the force of cohesion which is perceptible in boiling water is apparently absent from steam, or the vapour of water, because its molecules are too remote from one another to allow of this force being appreciable. We may, therefore, suppose that a large part, at least, of the heat necessary to convert boiling water into steam is spent in doing work against molecular forces.
When the steam is once more condensed into hot water the heat thus spent reassumes the form of molecular motion, and the consequence is that we require to take away somehow all the latent heat of a kilogramme of
