2 An Inquiry concerning 



so sensible of the delicacy of the inquiry, that I was for 

 a long time afraid to form a decided opinion upon the 

 subject. 



Being much struck with the experiments recorded in 

 the Transactions of the Royal Society, Vol. LXXV., 

 made by Dr. Fordyce, upon the weight said to be ac- 

 quired by water upon being frozen ; and being possessed 

 of an excellent balance, belonging to his Most Serene 

 Highness the Elector Palatine Duke of Bavaria; early 

 in the beginning of the winter of the year 1787, as 

 soon as the cold was sufficiently intense for my pur- 

 pose, I set about to repeat those experiments, in 

 order to convince myself whether the very extraordi- 

 nary fact related might be depended on ; and with a 

 view, to removing, as far as was in my power, every 

 source of error and deception, I proceeded in the fol- 

 lowing manner. 



Having provided a number of glass bottles, of the 

 form and size of what in England is called a Florence 

 flask, blown as thin as possible, and of the same 

 shape and dimensions, I chose out from amongst them 

 two, which, after using every method I could imagine 

 of comparing them together, appeared to be so much 

 alike as hardly to be distinguished from each other. 



Into one of these bottles, which I shall call A, I put 

 4107.86 grains Troy of pure distilled water, which 

 filled it about half full ; and into the other, B, I put 

 an equal weight of weak spirit of wine ; and, sealing 

 both the bottles hermetically, and washing them, and 

 wiping them perfectly clean and dry on the outside, I 

 suspended them to the arms of the balance, and placed 

 the balance in a large room, which for some weeks had 

 been regularly heated every day by a German stove, 



