COUNT RUHFORD. 



philosopher for that of the preacher. He seems filled 

 with religious enthusiasm on contemplating what he 

 holds to be the wisdom and benevolence displayed in 

 the arrangement of the physical world. One fact in 

 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 

 further. The expansion we now know to be due to in- 

 cipient crystallisation, or freezing, which, when it once 

 sets in, greatly, and suddenly, enhances the expansion. 

 A consequence 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 en- 

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

 untrained, and his language was not always such as a 

 truly disciplined 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 

 designs of Infinite Wisdom. The enterprise is ad- 

 venturous, 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. " 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- 



