182 
Count Rumford’s Inquiry concerning 
4107,86 grains,) and it requiring now ~ 3 0 4 3 parts of a grain, 
added to the opposite arm of the balance, to counterbalance it. 
Having had occasion just at this time to write to my friend. 
Sir Charles Blagden, upon another subject, I added a post- 
script to my letter, giving him a short account of this experi- 
ment, and telling him how “ very contrary to my expectation ” 
the result of it had turned out ; but I soon after found that I 
had been too hasty in my communication. Sir Charles, in 
his answer to my letter, expressed doubts respecting the fact ; 
but, before his letter had reached me, I had learned from my 
own experience, how very dangerous it is, in philosophical 
investigations, to draw conclusions from single experiments. 
Having removed the balance, with the two bottles attached 
to it, from the cold into the warm room, (which still remained 
at the temperature of 6i°), the ice in the bottle A gradually 
thawed; and, being at length totally reduced to water, and this 
water having acquired the temperature of the surrounding air, 
the two bottles, after being wiped perfectly clean and dry, were 
found to weigh as at the beginning of the experiment, before 
the water was frozen. 
This experiment being repeated, gave nearly the same result, 
the water appearing, when frozen, to be heavier than in its fluid 
state ; but, some irregularity in the manner in which the water 
lost the additional weight which it had appeared to acquire 
upon being frozen, when it was afterwards thawed, as also a 
sensible difference in the quantities of weight apparently ac- 
quired in the different experiments, led me to suspect, that the 
experiment could not be depended on for deciding the fact in 
question ; I therefore set about to repeat it, with some varia- 
tions and improvements ; but, before I give an account of my 
