Count Rumford’s Inquiry concerning 
the inquiry, that I was for a long time afraid to form a decided 
opinion upon the subject. 
Being much struck with the experiments recorded in the 
Transactions of the Royal Society, Vol. LXXV. made by Dr. 
Fordyce, upon the weight said to be acquired by water upon 
being frozen ; and being possessed of an excellent balance, belong- 
ing to His most Serene Highness the Elector Palatine Duke 
of Bavaria ; early in the beginning of the winter of the year 
1787, — as soon as the cold was sufficiently intense for my pur- 
pose, — I set about to repeat those experiments, in order to con- 
vince myself whether the very extraordinary fact related, might 
be depended on ; and, with a view to removing, as far as was in 
my power, every source of error and deception, I proceeded in 
the following manner. 
Having provided a number of glass bottles, of the form and 
size of what in England is called a Florence flask, — blown as 
thin as possible, — and of the same shape and dimensions, I chose 
out from amongst them two, which, after using every method I 
could imagine of comparing them together, appeared to be so 
much alike as hardly to be distinguished. 
Into one of these bottles, which I shall call A, I put 4,107,86 
grains Troy of pure distilled water, which filled it about half 
full ; and into the other, B, I put an equal weight of weak spirit 
of wine ; and, sealing both the bottles hermetically, and washing 
them, and wiping them perfectly clean and dry on the outside, 
I suspended them to the arms of the balance, and placed the 
balance in a large room, which for some weeks had been regu- 
larly heated every day by a German stove, and in which the air 
was kept up to the temperature of 6i° of Fahrenheit’s ther- 
mometer, with very little variation. Having suffered the bottles, 
