304 



HUMAN FIGURE IN ICE. 



shew its effects by a perpendicular action from beneath the 



surface of the ground, and is capable of being modified by 



changes of no great extent in what maybe lodged beneath. 



Ss? C1 bUu? ^' s P ower > moi1 g h imperfectly understood, seemed sufficient 



crystalliza- to disturb a process so variaWt* and delicate as that of crys- 



tionof water tallization : which we know is affected by the speedy or slow 

 into ice j — . j r j 



abstraction of heat or of moisture, the presence or absence of 



light, the action of tremors of any kind, and several other 

 rallv a t " e ^ ne accidents j~ and from a supposed difference in the agency of 

 plain the pre- such a power upon the water immediately over the drowned 

 sen ac b. man, and upon the other water, there appeared good grounds 



to account in a general way for the difference in their respective 



qualities. 

 More particu- My own reflections, since I had the pleasure of this conver- 

 ter invts t»ga- sat j on> w i)i a ff orc j a f ew additional remarks, which may give a 



more specific form to this explanation. I am disposed to 



think that the effect was caused by the developement of heat in 



The body the body, occasioned by the putrefaction or chemical change 



must have which must have taken place, though it may have proceeded 

 been slightly , - . , , - . . , 



heated by its ver y slowly, on account of the coldness of the water, and the 



chemical wan t of communication with the external air. This would 



andTwo'uld occasion a small degree of expansion in the water, in contact 



■warm the wa- with the body, and cause that fluid to.ascend perpendicularly to 



which^voulV tne sur ^ ace 5 where it would spread itself (thinly) on all sides, 



ascend, &c. and when cooled would descend near the circumference, as is 



outline of the da '^' seen wit ^ ^ ui ^ s neate d f ,om beneath. Or, in other words, 



figure. the particular mass of water, in this stagnant pond, which was 



perpendicularly over the corpse, and consequently had the same 



precise outline, as to all its horizontal sections, would be a little, 



warmer than the rest. And though this circulation would be a 



little modified by the expansion to which water is subject, when 



cooled below 40°, yet this would scarcely in any case affect the 



result, and not at all, if the freezing came on suddenly. It 



appears from our meteorological tables that it did so, on the 1 1th 



December. 



The water ex- Now these simple facts might, and probably did, occasion the 



tenor to the g rea t differences in the ice. For the external water, being 



freeze first originally colder at the commencement of the frost, would 



confusedly, 80 oner be cooled down to the freezing point, and begin to con- 

 and form , . ,.,,, • , 



©pake foul geal over its whole surface, while the other part would remain 



kft fluid. 



