“Mr Joule... fully established the relations of equivalence among the energies of chemical affinity, of heat, of combination or combustion, of electrical currents in the galvanic battery, of electrical currents in magnetoelectric machines, of engines worked by galvanism, and of all the varied and interchangeable manifestations of calorific action and mechanical force which accompany them. These researches, with the theory of animal heat and motion in relation to the heat of combustion of the food, and the theory of the phenomena presented by shooting stars, due to the same penetrating investigator, have afforded to the author of the present communication the chief groundwork for his speculations.”
