448 



liquid state. I made some experiments on this point. Bismuth was 

 melted and kept at a temperature at which both solid and liquid 

 metal could be present ; then rods of bismuth were introduced, but 

 when they had acquired the temperature of the mixed mass, no adhe- 

 sion could be observed between them. By stirring the metal with 

 wood, it was easy to break up the solid part into small crystalline 

 granules ; but when these were pressed together by wood under the 

 surface, there was not the slightest tendency to cohere, as hail or 

 snow would cohere in water. The same negative result was obtained 

 with the metals tin and lead. Melted nitre appeared at times to 

 show traces of the power ; but, on the whole, I incline to think the 

 effects observed resulted from the circumstance that the solid rods 

 experimented with had not acquired throughout the fusing tempera- 

 ture. Nitre is a body which, like water, expands in solidifying; and 

 it may possess a certain degree of this peculiar power. 



Glacial acetic acid is not merely without regelating force, but 

 actually presents a contrast to it. A bottle containing five or six 

 ounces, which had remained liquid for many months, was at such a 

 temperature that being stirred briskly with a glass rod crystals began 

 to form in it ; these went on increasing in size and quantity for eight 

 or ten hours. Yet all that time there was not the slightest trace of 

 adhesion amongst them, even when they were pressed together ; and 

 as they came to the surface, the liquid portion tended to withdraw 

 from the faces of the crystals ; as if there were a disinclination of the 

 liquid and solid parts to adhere together. 



Many salts were tried (without much or any expectation), crystals 

 of them being brought to bear against each other by torsion force, 

 in their saturated solutions at common temperatures. In this way 

 the following bodies were experimented with : Nitrates of lead, 

 potassa, soda; sulphates of soda, magnesia, copper, zinc; alum; borax; 

 chloride of ammonium ; ferro-prussiate of potassa; carbonate of soda; 

 acetate of lead ; and tartrate of potassa and soda ; but the results with 

 all were negative. 



My present conclusion therefore is that the property is special for 

 water ; and that the view I have taken of its physical cause does not 

 appear to be less likely now than at the beginning of this short 

 investigation, and therefore has not sunk in value among the three 

 explanations given. 



