THE 



PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE 



AND 



ANNALS OF PHILOSOPHY. 



[NEW SERIES.] 



JUNE 1828. 



LXII. On the Artificial Production of Cold. By Richard 

 Walker, Esq. of Oxford. 



To the Editors of the Philosophical Magazine and Annals. 

 Gentlemen, 



IT is now forty-one years since my discoveries on the " arti- 

 ficial production of cold " were first made public by their 

 appearance in the Philosophical Transactions for the year 1787, 

 and several succeeding volumes. Passing over what has al- 

 ready been published respecting them, I shall proceed to a 

 detail of a few other circumstances as a kind of appendix, which 

 I have for several seasons intended to offer for publication, 

 had not other matters, as professional avocations and profes- 

 sional communications, too much engaged my attention to al- 

 low of it. 



Immediately on the announcement of the discoveries as above 

 stated, I received various proposals from respectable persons 

 respecting their practical utility in this country. I answered 

 these by a declaration that wherever natural ice could be ob- 

 tained and preserved, this must ever supersede the use of the 

 artificial means alluded-to. It is true that I had an eye to 

 their application in hot climates, as between the tropics ; and 

 so soon as my experiments became public, a treatise on the 

 diseases of tropical climates appeared from the pen of Dr. 

 Moseley, who fixed upon one, which he considered the most 

 appropriate, and strongly recommended its adoption as a very 

 valuable acquisition as well in a medicinal point of view, as a 

 luxury. 



Relinquishing, from various causes, the design of applying 

 them myself to any such purpose, I took care however to point 



New Series. Vol. 3. No. 18. June 1828. S F out, 



