222 PROFESSOR PAGET ON THE FREEZING OF THE ALBUMEN OF EGGS. 
with the albumen ; if their whole substance were decomposed, so as to emit a more or 
less putrid odour ; if a powerful electric shock had been passed through them, — in 
all these conditions, they froze more quickly than fresh and uninjured eggs did, that 
were exposed with them to the same low temperature. The average difference in 
the respective times of freezing was nearly the same as that already stated. 
All these experiments tended to confirm Mr. Hunter’s explanation ; for all seemed 
to show that, by the influence of such forces as commonly destroy animal life, eggs 
lose some capacity of resisting the abstraction of heat. But when I examined 
the registers of the decrements of heat sustained by the several eggs during each 
minute of their exposure to the cold, it appeared that the fresh eggs almost always 
lost heat more rapidly than those did which had been frozen, broken, decomposed, or 
electrified. An average result of experiments upon thirty-three eggs of each class 
was, that, between the fifth and fifteenth minutes after first exposure to a temperature 
of from 5 ° Fahr. to 10° Fahr., the fresh eggs lost 17° of heat, and the others only 13^°. 
The reason why the fresh eggs, though they lost heat more rapidly than the others, 
yet were longer in freezing, was, that in most cases their temperature was reduced 
some degrees below 32° before freezing’ took place ; while the eggs that had been 
frozen before, or that were in any other way spoiled, always began to freeze as soon 
as they reached the temperature of 32°. 
Mr. Hunter had remarked this difference. In one of his experiments, he says, 
a fresh egg sank to 29^°, and in twenty-five minutes later than the dead one, it 
rose to 32°, and began to swell and freeze.” But I found that fresh eggs could be 
reduced to a much lower temperature without freezing. In several experiments they 
fell to 20°; in some to 16°, before, with a rapid rise to 32°, freezing took place ; and 
from some observations, which will be hereafter mentioned, I believe that, under 
favourable circumstances^ the temperature of a fresh and unbroken egg may be 
reduced to within 5° of zero of Fahrenheit without freezing, although its proper 
freezing-point, and that to which its temperature rises when it begins to freeze, is 
3’2° or between 31° and 32°-’f'. 
It thus appeared that a fresh egg does not resist freezing as a living animal does, 
which either parts with its heat slowly, or else produces heat, compensating in some 
measure for that which is lost. It is as much the peculiarity of the fresh egg to lose 
its heat more quickly than another does, as it is to be longer in freezing ; and, indeed, 
this quicker loss of heat seems essentially connected with the ability to be reduced 
far below 32° without freezing; for, among thirty-two fresh eggs, there were eleven 
which began to freeze at 32°, and all these had lost heat slowly; the average decre- 
ment between tlie fifth and fifteenth minutes of their exposure to cold being only 13f°. 
* The chief of these circumstances are, that the egg should he unmoved, and that its albumen should be 
not even so much disturbed as it is by the introduction of the thermometer. 
t With so slender thermometers as I was obliged to use, it was not possible to determine within half a 
degree the precise freezing-point. 
