466 Life of Count Rumford. 



more sluggish will be the communication of heat through 

 its particles. 



" Let us stop, here," adds the Count, " for one moment, just 

 to ask ourselves a very interesting question. Suppose that in 

 the general arrangement of things it had been necessary to con- 

 trive matters so that water should not freeze in winter, or that 

 it should not freeze but with the greatest difficulty, very slowly, 

 and in the smallest quantity possible. How could this have been 

 most readily effected ? 



" Those who are acquainted with the law of the condensa- 

 tion of water on parting with its Heat have already anticipated 

 me in these speculations ; and it does not appear to me that 

 there is anything which human sagacity can fathom, within the 

 wide-extended bounds of the visible creation, which affords a 

 more striking or more palpable proof of the wisdom of the 

 Creator, and of the special care he has taken in the general 

 arrangement of the universe to preserve animal life, than this 

 wonderful contrivance ; for though the extensiveness and im- 

 mutability of the general laws of Nature impress our minds 

 with awe and reverence for the Creator of the universe, yet 

 exceptions to those laws, or particular modifications of them, from 

 which we are able to trace effects evidently salutary or advan- 

 tageous to ourselves and our fellow-creatures, afford still more 

 striking proofs of contrivance, and ought certainly to awaken in 

 us the most lively sentiments of admiration, love, and gratitude. 



" Though in temperatures above blood heat the expansion of 

 water with Heat is very considerable, yet in the neighborhood 

 of the freezing point it is almost nothing. And what is still 

 more remarkable, as it is an exception to one of the most gen- 

 eral laws of Nature with which we are acquainted, when in 

 cooling it comes within eight or nine degrees, on Fahrenheit's 

 scale, of the freezing point, instead of going on to be farther 

 condensed as it loses more of its Heat, it actually expands as it 

 grows colder, and continues to expand more and more as it is 



more cooled The difference between the laws of the 



condensation of pure water, and of the same fluid when it holds 



