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To do juftice indeed to Mr. Boyle, he afterwards, upon more 

 mature confideration, fhews it to be his opinion, agreeable to 

 that of Sir Martin Frobilher, that the freih water obtained from 

 ice floating in the fea proves it could not. have been formed from 

 the ocean, " becaufe the main lea is feldom or ever frozen p." 



The next author who fuppofes that congealed fea-water is by 

 this procefs rendered fweet to the tafte, is Monf. Adanfon, who 

 informs us, that, upon his return from Senegal 'in 1748, he 

 carried two bottles of fea-water, taken up on the coaft of Africa, 

 from Breft to Paris, which, during an intenfe froft, was fo 

 frozen as to bunt, the bottles, and the contents afterwards be- 

 came palatable q . 



To this fail I fhortly anfwer, either that the bottles were 

 changed, or otherwife that Monf. Adanson does not mention 

 the circumftance by which the tafte of the fea-water was , thus 

 altered upon its being dillblved. Mr. Nairne hath been much 

 more accurate in ftating his experiments with regard to the 

 freezing fea-water, in a paper read before the Royal Society 

 on the 2d of February, 1776, as he mentions, that, in order to 

 clear the ice from any brine which might adhere to it, he 

 warned it in a pail of pump- water for a quarter of an hour, after 

 which he informs the Society, that to his palate it was per- 

 fectly free from any tafte of fait. 



This is mofi undoubtedly the fact, but Mr. Nairne does not 

 feem to be aware from what circumftance the ice thus melted 

 had become frefh water r ; and indeed I muft admit, that upon 



the 



p Boyle's Works, Vol.11, p. 302. 

 *i Voyage au Senegal, p. 190. 



r As Mr. Nairne, in his letter to Sir John Pringle, fays that one of 

 his great reafons for trying thefe experiments was to determine whether 

 1 the 



