290 Deerfield Disruption. 



It may be proper to observe, that in neither of these disrup- 

 tions has the general mass of the hills sunk in the least. Had 

 this been the case, it might perhaps have accounted for them^. 

 It is also certain, that the soil below where it was frozen the 

 past winter, has not been moved. I mentioned this fact in my 

 first communication, though with some suggested doubt. 



REMARKS. 



An opinion having been requested by Mr. Hitchcock on the 

 above facts, it maybe observed, that there appears in the state- 

 ment sufficient evidence that the phenomenon (as the author 

 has suggested) is attributable lo frost. 



It is a fact, established equally by common experience and 

 by numerous experiments, that water, in freezing, expands. 

 It is generally estimated that 8 cubic inches of water, become 

 9 by the act of congealing. The expansion is attributed, with 

 sufficient evidence, to a crystalhne arrangement arising from a 

 kind of polarity in the particles of water exerted when they are 

 near congealing, by which they attract one another in certain 

 points, and not in others. Dr. Black, with his usual felicity, 

 has illustrated this tendency, by supposing a great number of 

 small magnetized needles, thrust through corks, so that they 

 will float parallel to the surface of water, to be thrown pur- 

 miscuously into a vessel of that fluid. They will not remain 

 in the situation in which they are thrown in, but, in conse- 

 quence of their polarity, attractions and repulsions will be 

 immediately exerted; they will rush together, with a force 

 equal to the overcoming of a certain resistance ; they will ar- 

 range themselves in pairs and groups, and finally, in a connect- 

 ed assemblage. 



The particles of water attract each other with a prodigious 

 force, when resistance is opposed ; for it is well known that 

 domestic utensils, trees, rocks, and even cannon, and bomb- 

 shells, are burst with explosion, when water confined within 

 them is frozen. 



There is force enough then exerted by the expansion of 

 freezing water, to produce all the mechanical violence, whose 

 effects were so striking in the instance at Deerfield. 



In the common cracking of the ground by frost, so exten- 

 sively observed in cold climates, the effect appears to result in 



