152 Royal Society :— 
Is this remarkable property peculiar to water, or is it general to 
all bodies? In respect of water it certainly seems to offer us a glimpse 
into the joint physical action of many particles, and into the nature 
of cohesion in that body when it is changing between the solid and 
liquid state. I made some experiments on this point. Bismuth was 
melted and kept at a temperature at which both solid and liquid 
metal could be present; then rods of bismuth were introduced, but 
when they had acquired the temperature of the mixed mass, no adhe- 
sion could be observed between them. By stirring the metal with 
wood, it was easy to break up the solid part into small crystalline 
granules ; but when these were pressed together by wood under the 
surface, there was not the slightest tendency to cohere, as hail or 
snow would cohere inwater. The same negative result was obtained 
with the metals tin and lead. Melted nitre appeared at times to 
show traces of the power; but, on the whole, I incline to think the 
effects observed resulted from the circumstance that the solid rods 
experimented with had not acquired throughout the fusing tempera- 
ture. Nitre is a body which, like water, expands in solidifying; and 
it may possess a certain degree of this peculiar power. 
Glacial acetic acid is not merely without regelating force, but 
actually presents a contrast to it. A bottle containing five or six 
ounces, which had remained liquid for many months, was at such a 
temperature that being stirred briskly with a glass rod crystals began 
to form in it; these went on increasing in size and quantity for eight 
or ten hours. Yet all that time there was not the slightest trace of 
adhesion amongst them, even when they were pressed together ; and 
as they came to the surface, the liquid portion tended to withdraw 
from the faces of the crystals ; as if there were a disinclination of the 
liquid and solid parts to adhere together. 
Many salts were tried (without much or any expectation),—cerystals 
of them being brought to bear against each other by torsion force, 
in their saturated solutions at common temperatures. In this way 
the following bodies were experimented with :—Nitrates of lead, 
potassa, soda; sulphates of soda, magnesia, copper, zinc; alum; borax; 
chloride of ammonium; ferro-prussiate of potassa; carbonate of soda; 
acetate of lead; and tartrate of potassa and soda; but the results with 
all were negative. 
My present conclusion therefore is that the property is special for 
water; and that the view I have taken of its physical cause does not 
appear to be less likely now than at the beginning of this short 
investigation, and therefore has not sunk in value among the three 
explanations given. 
Dr. Tyndall added to one of his papers*, a note of mine “On ice 
of irregular fusibility ”’ indicating a cause for the difference observed 
in this respect in different parts of the same piece of ice. The view 
there taken was strongly confirmed by the effects which occurred in 
the jar of water at constant temperature described in the beginning 
of the preceding pages, where, though a thawing process was set up, 
it was so slow as not to dissolve a cubic inch of ice in six or seven 
days. The blocks retained entirely under water for several days, 
* Philosophical Transactions, 1858, p. 228. 
