Dr. blag den’s HJlory of 
44 and feemingly thickened, fo that, though the Iky was in 
44 other refpects clear, the fun appeared as through a fog. I 
44 had only one fmail thermometer left, on which the Icale 
44 went no lower than - po° ; and on the 6th in the morning I 
44 remarked that the quickfilver in it funk into the ball, except 
44 fome fmail columns which became lolid and ftuck fall in the 
44 tube. By the temperature of a room not much warmed, 
44 into which I brought the thermometer from the gallery of 
44 my houfe, thefe congealed columns immediately fell down ; 
44 but it was more than half a minute before the mercury came 
44 into motion out of the ball. I repeated this experiment fre* 
44 quently, and always with fimilar fuccefs, fometimes one and 
44 fometimes more threads of frozen quickfilver remaining behind 
44 in the tube. When the ball of the thermometer, as it hung 
44 in the open air, was warmed by being touched with the fin- 
44 gers, the quickfilver rofe ; and it could plainly be feen, that 
44 the folid frozen columns ftuck and refilled a good while, and 
44 were at length pulhed up with a fort of violence. In the 
44 mean time 1 placed upon the gallery on the north fide of my 
44 houfe about a quarter of a pound of clean and dry quick- 
44 fiiver in an open bowl ; within an hour I found the edges 
44 and fur face of it frozen folid, and fome minutes afterwards 
44 the whole was condenfed, by the natural cold, into a foft 
44 mafs very much like tin. While the inner part was ftill 
44 fluid, the frozen lurface exhibited a great variety of branched 
44 wrinkles; but in general it remained pretty fmooth in freez- 
44 ing, as did alfo a larger quantity of quickfilver which I after - 
• 4 wards expofed to the cold. The congealed mercury was more 
44 flexible than lead; but upon being bent fhort it was found 
44 more brittle than tin, and when hammered out thin it feemed 
t£ fomewhat granulated. If the hammer had not been per- 
4 44 fedlly 
