COUNT RUMFORD. 159 



particular excited this emotion. De Luc had pointed 

 out that when water is cooled, it shrinks in volume, until 

 it reaches a temperature of about 40 Fahr. At this point 

 it ceases to contract, and expands when cooled still fur- 

 ther. The expansion we now know to be due to incipi- 

 ent crystallisation, or freezing, which, when it once sets 

 in, greatly, and suddenly, enhances the expansion. A con- 

 sequence of this is that ice floats as a lighter body upon 

 water. This fact riveted the attention of Rumford, and 

 its obvious consequences filled him with the enthusiasm 

 to which I have referred. He was strong, but untrained, 

 and his language was not always such as a truly dis- 

 ciplined man of science would employ. ' Let me,' he 

 says, * beg the attention of my reader, while I endeavour 

 to investigate this most interesting subject, and let me 

 at the same time bespeak his candour and indulgence. 

 I feel the danger to which a mortal exposes himself who 

 has the temerity to undertake to explain the designs of 

 Infinite Wisdom. The enterprise is adventurous, but it 

 cannot surely be improper.' 



He ' explains ' accordingly ; and notwithstanding 

 his professed humility, does not hesitate to brand those 

 who fail to see with his eyes as ' degraded, and quite 

 callous to every ingenuous and noble sentiment.' He 

 indulges in excursions of the imagination to show the 

 misfortunes that would accrue if the arrangement of the 

 world had been different from what it is. 4 Had not 

 Providence, in a manner which may be well considered 

 as miraculous,' stopped the contraction of water before 

 it reached its freezing point, and caused it to expand 

 afterwards, a single winter would freeze every fresh-water 

 lake within the polar circle to a vast depth, ' and it is 

 more than probable that the regions of eternal frost would 

 have spread on every side from the poles, and, advancing 

 towards the equator, would have extended its dreary 



