In the year 1736, the French Academy of Sciences proposed, as a subject
for a prize, "the Propagation of Heat," when the Marchioness of Châtelet
entered the list of competitors. Her work was not only an elegant
account of all the properties of heat at that time known to natural
philosophers, but it was also remarkable for various proposals for
experiments; one, among others, which was afterwards followed up by
Herschel, and from which he derived one of the chief gems in his
brilliant scientific crown.
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