CALORIC. 
271 
the wind ; and the robin puffing out his feathers, and 
contracting his neck into his body, is peeping with his 
fine bright eyes into the windows from the cypress 
bough. A few evergreens are waving their sprays, and 
glittering in the light, yet making but poor compensa- 
tion for the variety, the flutter, the verdure, of our sum- 
mer. Though we have little natural beauty to note or 
to record, we are not left without a testimony of an 
overruling Power ; and, however sad and melancholy 
things may appear at the first view, yet a more steady 
observation will manifest to us a presiding Providence 
and Mercy. Frost and snow are but cheerless subjects 
for contemplation, yet I would add a reflection in my 
Journal of our passing events, or rather recall from 
memory the truth, that science has made known to us, 
revived by the sight of that frozen pool. There is one 
universal body, inherent in every known substance in 
nature, latent heat, which chemists have agreed to call 
44 caloric.” By artificial means bodies may be deprived 
of certain portions of it ; and then the substance most 
usually contracts, and increases in weight. Water is 
an exception to this ; for in losing a part of its heat, 
the cause of its fluidity, and becoming ice, it expands, 
and is rendered lighter, by inclosing, during the opera- 
tion, more, or less of atmospheric air : consequently it 
swims, covering the surface. To this very simple cir- 
cumstance, ice floating and not sinking, are the banks 
and vicinities of all the rivers, lakes, pools, or great 
bodies of water in northern Europe, Asia, and America, 
rendered habitable, and what are now the most fertile 
and peopled would be the most sterile and abandoned, 
were it not for this law of nature. Had ice been so 
heavy as to sink in water, the surface on freezing would 
have fallen to the bottom, and a fresh surface would be 
presented for congelation ; this would then descend in 
its turn, and unite with the other; and thus during a 
hard frost successive surfaces would be presented, and 
fall to the bottom, as long as the frost or any fluid re- 
mained. By this means the whole body of the water 
would become a dense concretion of ice : its inhabitants 
would not only perish, but the indurated mass would 
