VOL. LXXIV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 583 



A porcelain cup being laid on some of this ice about half an hour, in a room 

 whose temperature was 50°, it was found pretty firmly adhering, and when 

 pulled off, the ice exhibited an exact impression of the fluted part of the cup 

 which it had been in contact with ; so that the ice must necessarily have liquefied 

 first, and afterwards congealed again. This was repeated several times, with the 

 same event. Fragments of the ice were also applied to each other, to sponges, 

 to pieces of flannel and of linen cloth, both moist and dry : all these, in a few 

 seconds, began to cohere, and in about a minute were frozen so as to require 

 some force to separate them. After standing an hour, the cohesion was so firm, 

 that on pulling away the fragments of ice from the woollen and sponge, they tore 

 off with them that part of the surface which they were in contact with, though 

 at the same time both the sponge and flannel were filled with water which that 

 very ice had produced. 



To make some estimate of the force of the congelation, which was stronger 

 on the two bodies last mentioned than on linen, I applied a piece of ice to a 

 piece of dry flannel which weighed 24- dwts. and surrounded them with other ice. 

 After lying together -§- of an hour, taking the piece of ice in my hand and hook- 

 ing the flannel to a scale, I found a weight of 5 oz. to be necessary for pulling 

 it off, and yet so much of the ice had liquefied as to increase the weight of the 

 flannel above 12 dwts. I then weighed the piece of ice, put them together 

 again, and 4 hours after found them frozen so firmly as to require 78 oz. for 

 their separation, though from 42 dwts. of the ice, 15 more had melted off: the 

 surface of contact was at this time nearly a square inch. I continued them 

 again together for 7 hours ; but they now bore only 62 oz. the ice being dimi- 

 nished to 14 dwts. and the surface of contact reduced to about -fi^ of a square 

 inch. 



Having seen before that pounded ice absorbs water in very considerable quan- 

 tity, I suspected that something of the same kind might take place even with 

 entire masses ; and experiment soon convinced me, that even apparently solid 

 pieces of ice will imbibe water, slower or quicker according to its stage of decay. 

 I have repeatedly heated some of my thermometer pieces, and laid them on ice, 

 in which they made cavities of considerable depth, but the water was always ab- 

 sorbed, sometimes as fast as it was produced, leaving both the piece and the 

 cavity dry. Thus, though I cannot sufficiently express how much I admire the 

 discovery that gave rise to these experiments, I have nevertheless to lament my 

 not being able to avail myself of it at present for the purpose I wished to apply 

 it to. 



That in my experiments the two seemingly opposite processes of nature, con- 

 gelation and liquefaction, went on together, at the same instant, in the same 

 vessel, and even in the same fragment of ice, is a fact of which I have the 



