248 PROF. EDWARD HULL, ON THE ABNORMAL CONDITIONS 
depth of 240 feet down to nearly 1,000 there is an unvarying 
temperature of 349° F. (6°6° C.) throughout the year. In the 
Lake of Constance a temperature of 40°1° F. (45° C.) prevails 
in the deeper parts, and in that of Neuchatel of 41° F. (5° C.) 
prevails. The slight excesses in some cases are probably due 
to the heat of the bottom rocky floor. 
I hope I have succeeded in showing that the two conditions 
under which water exists are apparently abnormal—yet I do 
not wish to assert that they are on a plane outside the range of 
the Creator’s general work, or plan, in Nature. To my mind 
the whole mechanism of the world is the outcome of supreme 
wisdom and mind tending to the harmonious working of the 
whole, and the instances I have adduced are only parts of the 
general plan. These are amongst the most evident as indicating 
DEsIGN, and we are therefore more able to investigate their 
mode of operation. 
DISCUSSION. 
At the conclusion of the paper the Rev. A. IrvinG, D.Sc., B.A., 
said: Professor Hull’s paper on ‘‘ Abnormal Properties of Water, as 
Evidence of Design in Nature,” deals with a very interesting 
subject, and one which Canon J. M. Wilson of Worcester, who in 
his day was a Cambridge Senior Wrangler, handled in a masterly 
way in a lecture given many years ago to the Literary and Philo- 
sophical Society of Nottingham. 
(1) The fact that water has its maximum density at 4° C. is one 
which admits of quite simple demonstration, and I have frequently 
given the demonstration (by a modification of Hope’s method) to 
classes in years gone by. But not only does water expand on 
cooling from 4° C. to 0° C., it also further expands in the act of 
congelation, a fact with which most householders have unpleasant 
familiarity in severe frosty weather. The force of this expansion is 
enormous. Some thirty years ago we obtained actual demonstration 
of this at Wellington College, when a bomb-shell, 9 inches in 
diameter, with walls of solid cast-iron 14 inches thick, was burst 
into three large fragments by simply exposing the sbell (after being 
filled with water at 4° C. and closed with the gun-metal plug) to 
