XVIII. On the relative power of metals and alloys to conduct heat.— Part I

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Abstract
Metals and their alloys being now so extensively employed in arts and manufactures, and for instruments of precision, we have thought that it would be interesting, in a scientific or commercial point of view, if we were to examine their conductibility carefully and completely. To enable us to determine with accuracy the conducting power of all the ordinary metals, and of seventy of their alloys and thirty of their amalgams, we had to find out a new method of determining the conducting power of metals; for the process followed by M. Despretz could only give results to be relied upon for a few of the best conductors, such as silver, gold, and copper. Further, his process, which consists in having a long and thick bar of metal, so as to allow holes to be drilled, in which mercury and the bulb of a thermometer are inserted, would have required a large quantity of each metal in a state of purity, the labour of obtaining which, even comparatively pure, is well known. Also from the fact of mercury being employed, we should have been unable to ascertain the conducting power of such important alloys as brass and bronzes, and could not have applied the process to amalgams.

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