This volume on Heat is the third of a series forming a Text-Book on Physics. The first two volumes dealt with tho Properties of Matter and Sound, and the succeeding volumes will deal with Magnetism and Electricity, and Light.
The Text-Book is intended chiefly for the use of students who lay most stress on the study of the experimental part of Physics, and who have not yet reached the stage at which the reading of advanced treatisos on special subjects is desirable. Tо bring the subject within the compass thus prescribed, an account is given only of phenomena which are of special importance, or which appear to throw light on other branches of Physics, and the mathematical methods adopted are very elementary. The student
who possesses a knowledge of advanced mathematical methods, and who knows how to use them, will, no doubt, be able to work out and remember most easily a theory which uses such methods. But at present a large number of earnest students of Physics are not so equipped, and tho authors aim at giving an account of the
subject which will be useful to students of this class. Even for the reader who is mathematically trained, there is some advantage in the study of elementary methods, compensating for their cumbrous form. They bring before us more evidently the points at which various assumptions are made, and they render more
prominent the conditions under which the theory holds good.