164 An Inquiry concerning the 
muft have acquired the temperature of the circumambient 
air, I wiped them afrefh with a very clean dry cambric 
handkerchief, and brought them into the moft exaé equi- 
librium pofhible, by attaching a fmall piece of very fine filver 
wire to the arm of the balance, to which the bottle which | 
was the lighteft was fufpended. 
Having fuffered the apparatus to remain in this fituation 
about twelve hours longer, and finding no alteration in the - 
relative weights of the bottles, (they continuing all this time 
to be in the moft perfeét equilibrium,) I now-removed them 
into a large uninhabited room fronting the north, in which 
the air, which was very quiet, was at the temperature of 
29° F., the air without doors being at the fame time at 27°3. 
and, going out of the room, and locking the door after me, 
t fuffered the bottles to remain forty-eight hours, undifturbed, 
in this cold fituation, attached to the arms of the balance as: 
before. 
At the expiration of that time I entered the room, ufing. 
the utmoft caution not to difturb the balance, when, to my 
great furprife, I found that the bottle A very fenfibly pre- 
ponderated. 
The water which this bottle contamed was completely 
frozen into one folid body of ice; but the fpirit of wine, in’ 
the bottle B, fhewed no figns of freezing. 
I now very cautioufly reftored the equilibrium, by adding - 
fmall pieces of the very fine wire of which gold lace is made, 
to the arm of the balance to which the bottle B was fuf- 
pended, oe I found that the bottle A had augmented its 
weight by +-3>5; part of its whole weight at the beginning 
of the experiment ;. the weight of the bottle with its contents: 
having been 4811,23 grains troy, (the bottle weighing 703,34" 
erains, and the water 4107,86 grains,) and it requiring now 
34, parts of a grain, added to the oppofite arm of the ba- 
lance, to counterbalance it. 
Having had occafion juft at this time to write to my friend, 
Sir Ghats Blagden, upon another fubject, I added a poft- 
fcript to my letter, giving him a fhort account of this expe- 
ment, and telling him how “ very contrary to my expeétation’’ 
the vefult of it had turned out: but I foon after found that ¥ 
hac 
