Page:Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat.djvu/100

acquired by the gas after its compression, and evidently in inverse ratio with this specific heat. Thus we can easily form the table of the elevations of temperature of the different gases for a compression of ${\tfrac {1}{116}}$.

Table of the Elevation of Temperature
of
Gases through the Effect of Compression.

Names of Gases.	Elevation of Temperature for a Reduction of Volume of ${\tfrac {1}{116}}$
Atmospheric Air	1.000
Hydrogen Gas	1.160
Carbonic Acid	0.730
Oxygen	1.035
Nitrogen	1.000
Protoxide of Nitrogen	0.667
Olefiant Gas	0.558
Oxide of Carbon	0.955

A second compression of ${\tfrac {1}{116}}$ (of the altered volume), as we shall presently see, would also raise the temperature of these gases nearly as much as the first; but it would not be the same with a third, a fourth, a hundredth such compression. The capacity of gases for heat changes with their volume. It is not unlikely that it changes also with the temperature.

We shall now deduce from the general proposi-