VOt. LXr.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. l6l 



food is bread soaked in milk, which in the beginning must be administered to 

 the fish in small quantities; in a short time the fish will bear more and grow 

 fatter. Mr. F. saw the experiment tried in a nobleman's house, in the princi- 

 pality of Anhalt-Dessau ; and during a fortnight he visited the fish every day. 

 After the fish had been kept in the above manner during a fortnight, it was 

 dressed and served up at dinner, when every one present found it excellent in its 

 flavour. 



XXXVIII. Of the Remarkable Cold observed at Glasgow, in the Month of 

 January 1768, By Mr, Alexander JVilson, Professor oj Astronomy at 

 Glasgow, p. 326. 



While in bed, on Sunday morning, Jan. 3, 1768, about 8 o'clock, Mr. W. 

 felt unusually cold. A little while after, on reaching out for a decanter which 

 he placed near him the preceding night, with some water in it, he was surprized 

 to find the surface of the water frozen over, the like not having happened before 

 in that place. On this he desired his son to try the cold by a thermometer. 

 The experiment was soon after made, by exposing a thermometer at a liigh 

 north window, and free from the walls of the house; in which situation it had 

 not remained a quarter of an hour, when they found the mercury had fallen to 

 5° of Fahrenheit's scale. Being satisfied, by another thermometer, that there 

 was no fallacy in this preliminary observation, it naturally occurred, that the 

 cold, however intense it now was, might have been much more so at some earlier 

 hour of the morning. But how to ascertain this, and to recover the lost ob- 

 servation, was the difficulty. In the eagerness of disappointed curiosity, they 

 were disposed to magnify this golden opportunity, which had now escaped them, 

 and to reflect on it with regret, when luckily a little invention helped them out. 

 A- notion suggested itself, that if they went very warily to work, they might 

 perhaps surprize those imagined colds still lurking under the surface of the snow, 

 which at that time lay thick upon the ground. 



Mr. W. immediately repaired to the fields, and sought out a low place, on 

 which the sun had not then risen ; here he laid the thermometer in the snow, 

 almost on the very surface, when presently the mercury sunk from -|- 6 deg. to 

 — 2 deg., which therefore he concluded to have been pretty nearly the coldest 

 temperature of the air over night. The next thing was, to make regular ob- 

 servations with the thermometer, so long as the cold promised to continue re- 

 markable. The instrument was hung upon a pole near the observatory, and to 



in the same dry vessel: but a small proportion of these can b. sold in a day; and I have frequently 

 been informed, that the fish continue in good health, notwithstanding their being thus exposed to 

 the air 6 cr 7 hours for several successive days. D. Bar. — Orig. 

 VOL. XIII. Y 



