oj sea waters, in different parts of the ocean , &c. 18 g 
found frozen, and in a few minutes the maximum of expansion 
is obtained. During this congelation the apparatus was never 
broken, and I satisfied myself by various trials with other ves- 
sels, that if a vent, however small, be allowed to sea water at 
the moment of freezing, the vessel is preserved entire, which, 
it is well known, scarcely ever happens in the case of com° 
mon water.* 
A singular consequence to be drawn from these experiments 
seems to be, that, since sea water does not begin to expand 
till it has been cooled below the point at which it usually 
freezes, if its congelation were not retarded, it would become 
solid without undergoing any previous expansion, and the 
law in question would altogether cease to exist in the case 
of sea water. 
With regard to the singular anomalies of temperature 
in the Arctic seas, which have given rise to this digression, 
though some of the facts in question may now be more easily 
understood, it would be premature, until the observations 
have been multiplied, and the facts themselves more accu- 
rately investigated, to attempt to bring them under any 
* The ice thus produced, it should be remembered, is very different from that 
which forms on the surface of the sea, since the latter parts with its salt in the act 
of freezing, a separation which can but very imperfectly take place in confined ves- 
sels. Accordingly 1 found the ice produced in this experiment soft and compressible 
like the water-ice of confectioners. 
With regard to the quantity of expansion which sea water undergoes, in confined 
vessels, at the moment of freezing, I have been able to estimate it with ease, and with 
sufficient accuracy, by freezing a known weight of water in a phial, connected with 
an open tube, and ascertaining exactly the proportion of water forced into the tube 
during congelation. The result of two experiments which agreed perfectly with 
each other, was, that the expansion of sea water, when passing to the state of ice, is 
equal to 7,1 per cent of it bulk. 
