228 ON THE PROPERTIES OF ICE NEAR ITS MELTING POINT. [1858. 



XX. ON SOME PROPERTIES OF ICE NEAR ITS 

 MELTING POINT.* 



During the last month of March I made some experiments 

 on the properties of ice near its melting point, with particular 

 reference to those of Mr. Faraday, published in the Athenaeum 

 and Literary Gazette for June 1850,t to which attention has 

 been more lately called by Dr. Tyndall and Mr. Huxley in 

 relation to the phenomena of glaciers. 



Owing to indisposition, 1 have been obliged to leave my 

 experiments for the present incomplete. But I am desirous, 

 before the session of the Royal Society closes, to place on record 

 some facts which I have observed, and also some conclusions 

 which I deduce from these and other recent experiments and 

 discussions. 



Mr. Faraday's chief fact, to which the term " regelation " 

 has been more lately applied, is this, that pieces of ice, in a 

 medium above 32, when closely applied, freeze together, and 

 flannel adheres apparently by congelation to ice under the same 

 circumstances. 



1. These observations I have confirmed. But I have also 

 found that metals become frozen to ice when they are surrounded 

 by it, or when they are otherwise prevented from transmitting 

 heat too abundantly. Thus a pile of shillings being laid on a 

 piece of ice in a warm room, the lowest shilling, after becoming 

 sunk in the ice, was found firmly attached to it. 



2. Mere contact without pressure, is sufficient to produce 

 these effects. Two slabs of ice, having their corresponding sur- 

 faces ground tolerably flat, were suspended in an inhabited room 



* From the Proceedings of the Koyal Society of Edinburgh. 19th April 1858. 



f [The abstract of this communication by Mr. Faraday, so far as it relates to 

 the properties referred to above not being otherwise conveniently accessible, is 

 reprinted in Appendix II. to the present volume.] 



