fumigation; the patient sits naked with a blanket over him, on a cane-bottomed chair, under which twenty grains of calomel are volatilized by a spirit-lamp; in about twenty minutes the calomel is effectually absorbed by the skin.
CALONNE, CHARLES ALEXANDRE DE (1734–1802), French statesman, was born at Douai of a good family. He entered the profession of the law, and became in succession advocate to the general council of Artois, procureur to the parlement of Douai, master of requests, then intendant of Metz (1768) and of Lille (1774). He seems to have been a man of great business capacity, gay and careless in temperament, and thoroughly unscrupulous in political action. In the terrible crisis of affairs preceding the French Revolution, when minister after minister tried in vain to replenish the exhausted royal treasury and was dismissed for want of success, Calonne was summoned to take the general control of affairs. He assumed office on the 3rd of November 1783. He owed the position to Vergennes, who for three years and a half continued to support him; but the king was not well disposed towards him, and, according to the testimony of the Austrian ambassador, his reputation with the public was extremely poor. In taking office he found “600 millions to pay and neither money nor credit.” At first he attempted to develop the latter, and to carry on the government by means of loans in such a way as to maintain public confidence in its solvency. In October 1785 he recoined the gold coinage, and he developed the caisse d’ escompte. But these measures failing, he proposed to the king the suppression of internal customs, duties and the taxation of the property of nobles and clergy. Turgot and Necker had attempted these reforms, and Calonne attributed their failure to the malevolent criticism of the parlements. Therefore he had an assembly of “notables” called together in January 1787. Before it he exposed the deficit in the treasury, and proposed the establishment of a subvention territoriale, which should be levied on all property without distinction. This suppression of privileges was badly received by the privileged notables. Calonne, angered, printed his reports and so alienated the court. Louis XVI. dismissed him on the 8th of April 1787 and exiled him to Lorraine. The joy was general in Paris, where Calonne, accused of wishing to augment the imposts, was known as “Monsieur Deficit.” In reality his audacious plan of reforms, which Necker took up later, might have saved the monarchy had it been firmly seconded by the king. Calonne soon afterwards passed over to England, and during his residence there kept up a polemical correspondence with Necker on the finances. In 1789, when the states-general were about to assemble, he crossed over to Flanders in the hope of being allowed to offer himself for election, but he was sternly forbidden to enter France. In revenge he joined the émigré party at Coblenz, wrote in their favour, and expended nearly all the fortune brought him by his wife, a wealthy widow. In 1802, having again taken up his abode in London, he received permission from Napoleon to return to France. He died on the 30th of October 1802, about a month after his arrival in his native country.
See Ch. Gomel, Les Causes financières de la Révolution (Paris, 1893); R. Stourm, Les Finances de l’ancien régime et de la Révolution (2 vols., Paris, 1885); Susane, La Tactique financière de Calonne, with bibliography (Paris, 1902).
CALORESCENCE (from the Lat. calor, heat), a term invented by John Tyndall to describe an optical phenomenon, the essential feature of which is the conversion of rays belonging to the dark infra-red portion of the spectrum into the more refrangible visible rays, i.e. heat rays into rays of light. Such a transformation had not previously been observed, although the converse phenomenon, i.e. the conversion of short waves of light into longer or less refrangible waves, had been shown by Sir G. G. Stokes to occur in fluorescent bodies. Tyndall’s experiments, however, were carried out on quite different lines, and have nothing to do with fluorescence (q.v.). His method was to sift out the long dark waves which are associated with the short visible waves constituting the light of the sun or of the electric arc and to concentrate the former to a focus. If the eye was placed at the focus, no sensation of light was observed, although small pieces of charcoal or blackened platinum foil were immediately raised to incandescence, thus giving rise to visible rays.
The experiment is more easily carried out with the electric light than with sunlight, as the former contains a smaller proportion of visible rays. According to Tyndall, 90% of the radiation from the electric arc is non-luminous. The arc being struck in the usual way between two carbons, a concave mirror, placed close behind it, caused a large part of the radiation to be directed through an aperture in the camera and concentrated to a focus outside. In front of the aperture were placed a plate of transparent rock-salt, and a flat cell of thin glass containing a solution of iodine in carbon bisulphide. Both rock-salt and carbon bisulphide are extremely transparent to the luminous and also to the infra-red rays The iodine in the solution, however, has the property of absorbing the luminous rays, while transmitting the infra-red rays copiously, so that in sufficient thicknesses the solution appears nearly black. Owing to the inflammable nature of carbon bisulphide, the plate of rock-salt was found to be hardly a sufficient protection, and Tyndall surrounded the iodine cell with an annular vessel through which cold water was made to flow. Any small body which was a good absorber of dark rays was rapidly heated to redness when placed at the focus. Platinized platinum (platinum foil upon which a thin film of platinum had been deposited electrolytically) and charcoal were rendered incandescent, black paper and matches immediately inflamed, ordinary brown paper pierced and burned, while thin white blotting-paper, owing to its transparency to the invisible rays, was scarcely tinged. A simpler arrangement, also employed by Tyndall, is to cause the rays to be reflected outwards parallel to one another, and to concentrate them by means of a small flask, containing the iodine solution and used as a lens, placed some distance from the camera. The rock-salt and cold water circulation can then be dispensed with.
Since the rays used by Tyndall in these experiments are similar to those emitted by a heated body which is not hot enough to be luminous, it might be thought that the radiation, say from a hot kettle, could be concentrated to a focus and employed to render a small body luminous. It would, however, be impossible by such means to raise the receiving body to a higher temperature than the source of radiation. For it is easy to see that if, by means of lenses of rock-salt or mirrors, we focused all or nearly all the rays from a small surface on to another surface of equal area, this would not raise the temperature of the second surface above that of the first; and we could not obtain a greater concentration of rays from a large heated surface, since we could not have all parts of the surface simultaneously in focus. The desired result could be obtained if it were possible, by reflection or otherwise, to cause two different rays to unite without loss and pursue a common path. Such a result must be regarded as impossible of attainment, as it would imply the possibility of heat passing from one body to another at a higher temperature, contrary to the second law of thermodynamics (q.v.). Tyndall used the dark rays from a luminous source, which are emitted in a highly concentrated form, so that it was possible to obtain a high temperature, which was, however, much lower than that of the source.
A full account of Tyndall’s experiments will be found in his Heat, a Mode of Motion. (J. R. C.)
CALORIMETRY, the scientific name for the measurement of quantities of heat (Lat. calor), to be distinguished from thermometry, which signifies the measurement of temperature. A calorimeter is any piece of apparatus in which heat is measured. This distinction of meaning is purely a matter of convention, but it is very rigidly observed. Quantities of heat may be measured indirectly in a variety of ways in terms of the different effects of heat on material substances. The most important of these effects are (a) rise of temperature, (b) change of state, (c) transformation of energy.
§ 1. The rise of temperature of a body, when heat is imparted to it, is found to be in general nearly proportional to the quantity of heat added. The thermal capacity of a body is measured by the quantity of heat required to raise its temperature one degree, and is necessarily proportional to the mass of the body for bodies
