expansion wrs considerable since the water rose three inches and a half in the stem though the whole water in the Egg and stem too weighed but two ounces and a half 〈◊〉 the vessel had not been unluckily cracked we should have frozen the water once more and then sealing up the glass Hermetically and suffering the ice leisurely to thaw should have inverted it and broken it under water and have proceeded with it as we had done with some other glasses in the formerly mentioned Experiments 9. A little glass Cylinder open only at one end of a convenient length was thrust into a deep and wide mouth'd-glass about half filled with a mixture of Ice and salt but the Cylinder was neither so quite filled that the water should run over nor yet far short of being so that for all the opacous mixture of Ice and Salt we might guess at the freezing of that part of the water that we could not see by the changes appearing in the other Then conveying all into a Receiver that we had in readiness beforehand we quickly pumped out the Air upon which there came both from the upper lower parts of the water great store of Bubbles to the top where most of them brake into the Receiver having found upon trials purposely made that the Engine had continued stanch all the while and perceiving by the intumescence of the superior parts of the water that the other were frozen we let in the external Air and having removed the Receiver and taken out the mixture before the Ice was half melted we found the water as high as the mixture reached to be turn'd into ice which besides some large and conspicuous bubbles had small ones enough to render it opacous and upon the account of this expansion it was that the water did in the free Air continue a good deal higher then the mark it was but level with when the Cylinder was exposed to freez 10. The other way we employ'd to examine what was contained in icy bubbles and which seemed clearly enough to manifest that they are very far from being filled with true and springy Air is intimated in the last clause of the foregoing narrative but will be best understood by the annexed Experiments transcribed just as I find them registred in my Collections and though they be prolix and contain some few Particulars that make not directly for the purpose I alledge them for yet I think not fit to dismember or to epitomize them or otherwise to alter any thing in them partly that the inference I make from them may be the less mistrusted partly because the way of Experimenting being altogether new will be best apprehended by the subjoyned Examples and partly too because those Particulars that relate not directly to the occasion of our mentioning these trials may be useful to illustrate or confirm some thing that is already delivered or is hereafter to be delivered in the present History of Cold. 11. We took this day a glass of the form of an Egg but of double the capacity out of whose obtuse end rose up a long Cylindrical neck capable to receive the end of my little finger and no more this being fill'd with common water till the liquor reached a pretty way within the pipe and the surface of the water being carefully marked on the outside was placed in a vessel wherein ice very grosly beaten was mingled with a convenient Proportion of salt according to our way of Glaciation the Mixture not reaching up to the mark by above an inch The Experiment afforded us these Particulars I. A heedful Eye did not perceive the water sensibly to subside before it began to freez II. The water began to swell and some parts of it next the side or bottom of the glass to freez within a quarter of an hour III. The ascent of the water in the pipe increased so fast that within an hour from the time the glass was put in it did rise 4. inches and 2 9 above the mark afterwards the swelling connutied so that we took it out though a good part of the water remain'd unfrozen it had reach'd five inches and somewhat more then a half above the first Mark. IV. The ice and salt being purposely kept always beneath the surface of the water the lower parts of the water were frozen and never the upper surface V. During all this great Elevation of the water there appeared no bubbles worth taking notice of in the unfrozen parts of the liquor but the ice was very full of them divers of which toward the latter end of the Experiment were very large Bubbles but not all of them round some being about the bigness of hail shot some small like Mustard seed and others again not much inferior to little pease VI. Having taken out the glass when the water was at the highest mark we did upon a certain design pour in as much sallet Oyl as swam about two inches above it and then the glass was nimbly at the flame of a Lamp seal'd up during which time the included water subsided a little but the glass being again put into the ice and salt the Cold quickly restored the water to its former height and there remained about an inch and a half of the seal'd glass unpossessed by the two contain'd liquors VII Then with a good pair of scales we weigh'd the glass-Egg first in the Air and then in the water the better to discern whether any shrinking of the glass interven'd in the case where it hung freely and was left hanging in its Equilibrium with its opposite weight VIII Whilest it thus hung upon the thawing of the ice many bubbles great and small ascended the great ones with a wrigling motion and vanish'd at the top IX As the ice thaw'd the water and oyl descended till the whole ice was return'd to water at which time we observ'd these two remarkable things the one That the Equilibrium remain'd the same the other which was more considerable that the water was subsided again as low as the first mark with which it was level before it began to swell without falling beneath it notwithstanding the recess of such a multitude of Bubbles divers of which were very large X. The glass being inverted the seal'd end which was drawn slender was gently broken under water of which some being impell'd in did sensibly reduce the Air at the opposite end into a narrower room and as one of the spectators observ'd into a much narrower which is consonant enough to reason XI The glass being again inverted and held till it was setled we found that the water drawn in together with the water it found there and the oyl possess'd the same places as appeared by the marks in the Cavity of the Receiver that they did when it was seal'd up XII And lastly having thrown out the oyl and employing where need was a little water of the same kind we had made use of all this while
we found the glass fill'd to the highest mark to weigh 4374. grains when it was fill'd but to the lowest mark 4152. grains and when quite empty'd 1032. So that the water contain'd betwixt the highest and lowest mark and rais'd by the Glaciation was about a fifteenth part of the water set to freez and probably would have amounted to much more if the water had been all frozen 12. A large glass-Egg being taken with a proportionably big stem we poured water into it till it reached about an inch above the bottom of the stem and fastning a mark there we exposed it all night to freez in snow and salt which was so placed as not to reach so high as the bottom of the stem the next day about ten of the clock we found the water risen in the stem about 15. inches above the mark the whole Cylinder of water being fluid by reason of the snows not reaching to it Then upon a design to be elsewhere mentioned we seal'd up the glass by a very slender pipe that had been before purposely drawn out to a pretty distance from the body of the Cylinder that the glass might be seal'd in a trice before the flame of a Candle could sensibly rarifie the Air and after a while we broke off the Apex of this slender pipe in prosecution of our former Design Then suffering the water to swell freely within seven or eight hours it reach'd the very top of the glass a drop or two running over at the slender Orifice thereof so that in all the water ascended about 19. inches above the first mark then we tried by the flame of a candle to seal the glass but by reason of the Rarefaction of some of the water by the Heat into vapours by which some of the other water was from time to time spurted against the flame of the Candle we found it troublesome enough to seal it up the vessel being removed into a warm place till next morning and all the ice in the belly of it for the water in the stem continued fluid being thawed the water subsided not only to its first mark but a little beneath it by reason of that which was thrown out upon occasion of the sealing of the glass but when we came to invert this after the manner above mention'd into a vessel of water to see how much of the space deserted by the thaw'd Ice was fill'd with Air and how much was fill'd with a subtiler substance or empty just then a mischance frustrated our Expectation 13. An Egg about the same bigness with the former was placed to freez in beaten ice and salt and in less then a quarter of an hour it was risen near an inch above the Mark where the surface of the water was at the first and the water in the ball and the joyning of the neck was frozen into Laminae After an hour and a quarter those Laminae that before appeared in the beginning of the neck now disappear'd but the ball seem'd frozen into a white ice and the water in the neck was risen above the first mark four inches and a half There now appear'd abundance of small bubbles continually ascending through the neck which so continu'd all the time after till it was quite thaw'd and the white ice appear'd full of bubbles The Experiment being further pursu'd the water ascended higher and higher till it had reach'd about eight inches above the first mark Then the top of the pipe being with a Lamp drawn out into a very slender Cylinder for the conveniency of sealing up the glass was again put into the ice that the Air heated by the Lamp might cool upon which the water continued swelling till it began to run over at the orifice of the slender pipe which being held by in the flame of a candle was in a trice seal'd up so that the whole glass now appear'd full of water bating an inconsiderable Quantity of rarifi'd Air not amounting to the bigness of half a small Pea that remain'd contiguous to the seal'd part the Egg being brought into a warm room was kept there all night and a good part of the next morning before the ice was quite thaw'd which when it was the water was found subsided to the first mark and which being done the glass was inverted and the seal'd end immers'd a good way under water where being broken the external Air impell'd the water in the Bason into the Cavity of the pipe insomuch that when we took it out which we did as soon as we thought nomore water was impell'd up reinverting the glass we found that the admitted water reach'd seven inches above the first mark and left an inch and a half of the stem before it began to be wire-drawn besides as much of the slender part of the stem as by guess amounted to a quarter of an inch or more so that it seem'd that the Bubbles which made the water swell and appear'd in the 〈◊〉 amounted to an inch and three quarters of Air which consequently seem'd to be for the most part generated by this operation and to seven inches either of a vacuum or some 〈◊〉 substance which by its having no spring to resist the Pressure of the outward Air appear'd not to be Air We could not exactly measure the Quantity of water we had in all and the proportion of it betwixt the marks 〈◊〉 having left the glass in the window to try whether time or Cold would make the admitted water shrink which we did not find it to do the weather was so sharp that beginning as we concluded to 〈◊〉 the water in the stem the increasing ice burst out the belly of the glass into many pieces Another time 14. A seal'd glass being broken under water there was impell'd into the Cylinder ten inches and a little above a half And the mark it should have risen to was eleven inches and a quarter above the first and lowest mark Another time 15. In the same Bolthead wherein the greatest condensation of the Air was tri'd the water was by the Cold made to swell very near a foot above the mark it rested at when it began to freez then the glass being 〈◊〉 up the contain'd water was removed and suffered leisurely to thaw and upon the Dissolution of the ice the water fell back to the former mark lastly the glass being inverted the Apex was broken off under water and the water in the stem was by the outward Air pressing upon the water in the Bason with some Impetus and noise driven up into the Cavity of the glass and the glass being seasonably and warily remov'd from the Bason we found there had been impell'd up of the water in the Bason a little more then eleven inches so that there seem'd to be near ⅞ of an inch of Air generated or separated by the former operation Another time 16. In the same glass we made the water to swell about ten inches and
examine this having taken a piece of Ice we did not find upon trials that I partly made my self and partly caus'd in my presence to be made by others that if a mans Eyes were close shut he could certainly discern the Approach of a moderately siz'd piece of Ice though held never so near his fingers ends Nay which is more considerable having had the curiosity to make the Trial with one of those very sensible Thermoscopes I have formerly mention'd wherein a pendulous drop of liquor plays up and down in a slender pipe I found that by holding it very near to little Masses of snow somewhat compacted too the movable drop did not betray any manifest operation of so cold a neighbouring Body but if the glass were made to touch the snow the effect would then be notable by the hasty descent of the pendulous drop or its motion towards the obtuse part of the Instrument in case that were not perpendicularly but laterally appli'd to the snowy Lumps But this languidness of operation may perhaps proceed in great part from the smallness of the Pieces of Ice that were imploy'd For hearing of a Merchant that had made divers Observations about Cold in Greenland I desir'd by the mediation of a very learned Friend to be inform'd whether or no in the night they could perceive those vast heaps or rather mountains of ice that are wont to float up and down in that Sea by any new and manifest accession of Cold and was inform'd by way of Answer to that Question that being at Sea they could know the approach of Ice as well by the increase of Cold as by the glaring light which the Air seem'd to receive from the neighbouring Ice 3. But that which makes me suspect that there may in this account be some mistake is that I have not yet met with any like observation in any of the voyages into gelid Climates that I have had occasion to peruse though in some of them the Navigators frequently mention their having met with vast rands as some call them and Islands of mountainous ice in the night And 't is as I remember the complaint of one or two if not more of them that the Ship lay close by such vast pieces of ice without their being aware of it by reason of the fogs By which it seems that there was no sensible Cold diffused to any considerable distance whereby they might be advertised of the unwelcome neighbourhood even of so much ice But possibly the approach of far smaller masses of ice would have been sensible to them in such a Climate as ours where the organs would not have been indisposed to feel by a long accustomance of any thing near so intense a degree of Cold as that which then reigned in those Northern Seas 4. Whilest we were considering the Difference betwixt the operations of even the Coldest Bodies at the very nearest Distance and upon immediate Contact we thought it an Experiment not altogether unworthy to be tri'd whether though ice and snow alone that is unassisted by salts would not in some of our formerly mention'd Experiments freez water through the thickness even of a thin glass they may not yet do it when the water is immediately contiguous to them And I remember that we took a conveniently shap'd Glass and having frozen the contained water for some hours from the bottom upwards till the ice was grown to be of a considerable thickness we mark'd what part of the glass was possess'd by the unfrozen water and then removing the vessel to a little Distance from the snow and salt it stood in before we let it 〈◊〉 there to try whether the ice would freez any part of the contiguous and incumbent water but some intervening accidents hindred us from being able to derive any great satisfaction one way or other from our trial 5. Wherefore we shall add by way of Compensation that the diligent Olearius relates that at Ispahan the Capital City of Persia though it be seated in a very hot Climate and though it seldom freez there above a finger thick and the ice melt presently at Sun-rising yet the Inhabitants have Conservatories which they furnish with solid pieces of ice of a good thickness only by pouring at night great store of water at convenient intervals of time upon a shelving floor of Free-stone or Marble whereon as the water runs over it the most dispos'd of its parts are in their passage arrested and frozen by the contiguous ice which by this means says my learned Author may be brought in two or three successive nights to a very considerable thickness 6. We several times gave order to have this Experiment tried in England but partly through the negligence of those we imploy'd and partly upon the score of intervening circumstances our expectation was but ill answered And in this case I mention intervening circumstances because having caus'd a servant to pump in the night upon a not very thin plate of ice that was laid shelving upon a Board and another flat piece of Ice being about the same time laid under a place where water derived from a neighbouring spring is wont continually to drop he brought me word that not only in this last nam'd place the ice melted away but that under the pump instead of increasing in thickness by the waters running over it it was thereby rather dissolv'd At which somewhat wondring I went in the morning my self to the pump and causing a good flake of ice to be in a convenient posture plac'd under it I observed the water as it came out of the pump and was falling on the ice to smoak as if the depth of the Well had made the water though very Cold to the touch somewhat warm in comparison of the ice and thereby fitter to resolve then to increase it which inconvenience may be prevented by suffering the water of deep Springs and Wells to stand to cool in the Air before it be put to the Ice and this though the neighbouring Air were as I found by manifest proofs so cold that I was not tempted to impute the unsuccesfulness of the Experiment rather to its want of a sufficient coldness then the water's So that till I have an opportunity of making a further Trial I cannot 〈◊〉 more to the Persian way of augmenting ice But to proceed our having met with but an unsatisfactory Account of this Experiment which we were the more troubled at because this seem'd a promising way of trying that which otherwise is not so easily reduc'd to Experiment for the Temperature of the Air must be seriously consider'd in assigning the Cause of divers trials that may be made for the resolving of the same Question For to omit other Examples here in England we find that water poured on snow is wont to hasten the Dissolution of it and not to be congeal'd by it whereas having inquir'd of an Ingenious Person that liv'd a good while among the Russians
have suffic'd to turn water into ice and also after they had been if I may so speak thaw'd in a warm Air. But the paper in which we registred the events of these trials having been mislay'd I dare not charge my memory with the particulars Only if I mistake not one or two of the stones seem'd to have increased in weight after having been buried in our frigorifick mixture which I was apt to impute to some particles of the ice resolv'd into water by the salt that was mingled with it and being perhaps made more piercing by the saline particles associated with them imbib'd into the pores of the stone For I remember that having procur'd an Experiment that I then wanted conveniency to try my self to be made by an ingenions person upon a stone hard enough to bear a good polish I was by him inform'd that the stone by having been kept a while in water did though it were afterwards wip't dry discover a manifest increase of weight and in confirmation of my conjecture I shall add that from a sort of stones that are of a texture close enough to be usually polisht I did as I expected obtain by distillation and that without a naked fire a considerable quantity of an almost insipid liquor which I suspected to be in good part but water soaked into the stone for reasons that 't is not worth while here to discourse of the cause of my mentioning these particulars being that I hope they may make those that shall hereafter try such Experiments cautious how they draw inferences from them and may invite them to expose the bodies they would make trial of rather to the cold of the free Air in very sharp weather for want of which we our selves could not do what we advise then to artificial glaciations at least unless they be so ordered that nothing that 's moist come to touch the bodies to be wrought upon 14. But such Trials as these newly mention'd and others of the like kind we must leave to be prosecuted by those that are furnish'd with accurate Scales and leisure for want of the latter of which and sometimes too of the former we were fain to give over the pursuit of them which troubled us the less because those made with the seal'd Vials were diligently made and as for divers others we made them as we were saying more to be able to gratifie others then to satisfie our selves because though in case there should unquestionably appear some sensible increase or decrement of weight upon that which the Atomists would call the Accession or Expiration of frigorifick Corpuscles it would afford a plausible Argument in favour of the Epicurean Doctrine about the generation of ice yet if no such change of weight should be found upon the freezing or the thawing of water or any other Body I doubt whether it may on the contrary be safely concluded that the Atomists Theory of Cold is false For possibly they may pretend that the Atoms of Cold may not have either gravity or levity any more then the steams of Electrical Bodies or the Effluvia of the Loadstone Nay though we should admit the frigorifick Corpuscles not to be altogether devoid of gravity it may yet be said that when they invade the Body they freez they expel thence some other preexistent Atomes that may also have some little weight and that the frigorifick Corpuscles that flie or are driven away may be succeeded by some such when bodies come to be thaw'd But of this no more at present Appendix to the XX. Title THe Experiments recorded in the foregoing Section may perchance in this regard prove more useful then I was aware of that they may keep men from being misled by the contrary accounts that I find to have been given of the weight of ice and water by no obscure writers For to spare one of the famousest of the Ancients Helmont in the Treatise he calls Gas Aquae where he gives an account of the congelation of water which I confess to be unintelligible enough to me and where he is pleased to ascribe to I know not what extenuation of part of the sulphur he supposes to be in water that levity of ice which the bubbles it contains afford us an intelligible and ready account of delivers very positively this Experiment Imple says he lagenam vitream magnam frustis Glaciei collum verò claudatur sigillo Hermetis id est per vitri ibidem liquationem ponatur haectum lagena in bilance adjecto pondere in oppositum videbis quod propemodum octava sui parte aqua post resolutam glaciem erit ponderosiior seipsa glacie Quod cum millesies ex eadem aqua fieri possit c. Thus far Helmont who in case he take lagena vitrea in the ordinary acception of the word would have made us some amends for this erroneous account if he had taught us the way how he could seal such a broad vessel as a glass flagon Hermetically But what has been deliver'd in the foregoing Section will sufficiently shew what is to be thought of this Experiment of Helmonts And for further confirmation we have several times weigh'd ice frozen and reduc'd to water without finding any cause to doubt but that Helmont was mistaken And particularly upon the last Trial I made of this kind having fill'd a wide mouth'd glass with solid fragments of ice together with it amounting to a pound of which the glass alone weigh'd somewhat above five ounces I whelm'd over the mouth of it another flat bottom glass that if any vapours should ascend they might be condens'd into drops as in the like case I had formerly observ'd them to do And this ice being thaw'd in a warm room as no drops were seen to stick to the inside of the inverted glass so the other glass being again put into the same Scales appear'd almost exactly of the same weight as formerly whereas the ice alone that had been resolv'd amounting to much above eight ounces according to Helmonts proportion the weights should have been augmented by a whole ounce at least And I make little doubt but that if the Experiment had been tri'd in greater quantities of ice the event would have been very little if at all different But I purposely chose in the 〈◊〉 Experiments about cold to make my I rials in no greater quantities of matter then I have done because 't is very difficult to get scales strong enough to weigh without being injur'd much greater weights and yet be accurate enough to discover truly such small differences as are fit to be taken notice of in such Experiments But to return to Helmont notwithstanding all that we have said against what he delivers about the weight of ice yet because I take this inquisitive Chymist to have been in spite of all his extravagancies a Benefactor to experimental learning I am willing to suggest on his behalf that possibly much of the additional weight he
one fill'd up after the same manner to make the Experiment the more satisfactory But though he could not procure it yet the success was not unwelcome because it was manifest that there were cracks in the Iron in one place conspicuous and in others easily discoverable by blowing into the barrel and putting on the outside of the suspected parts either spittle or some fit liquor whose agitation plainly disclos'd the egress of the wind and there appear'd small cause to doubt but that these cracks were produc'd by the operation of the cold since not only the Smith was a skilful man in his trade and one that I us'd to imploy about Instruments and also the barrel had been sometimes kept many hours fill'd with water without appearing other then very stanch but which is the considerablest circumstance the night before the frost as I lately noted was not able to make the water break out at any of these clefts though it were able to force it self a way out at the screw in spight of all the care we had taken to make it go close I have only this circumstance to add about this matter that when by thawing one part of the ice some pieces of the rest were got out of the barrel all I took notice of appear'd to be full enough of Bubbles but yet such as seem'd lesser then ordinary whether they were so by chance or were determined to be so by the resistence or compression which the freezing water found upon its endeavouring to expand it self in the barrel Appendix to the XVII Title LOng since the writing of the foregoing Section meeting with a passage in Bartholinus where he vouches Cabaeus for the Experiment of congealing water without limiting it to any season of the year by putting Salt 〈◊〉 into it and shaking it strongly I was thereby confirmed that I was not mistaken in supposing that Gassendus mention'd in the former Section did not exclude that corporal and visible Nitre out of the number of the grand efficients of congelation For Cabaeus having publish'd his comment upon Aristotles Meteors whence this experiment is taken by Bartholinus before Gassendus publisht his Book 't is probable that he as well as others borrowed the Experiment from him and Cabaeus as Bartholinus quotes him prescribes the putting the Salt-petre its self into water which being a while put into a brisk motion will after some agitation not only refrigerate that water but bring it to a true and proper congelation Wherefore suspecting that this relation wherein Bartholinus says he will believe him without an oath may have given rise to the opinions and affirmations of those ingenious writers that have since ascrib'd such wonderful coldness to Nitre and finding in Bartholinus that Cabaeus's proportion betwixt the Nitre and the water was that of 35. to a 100. that is almost as one to three I thought it very well worth while to make Trial of an Experiment which seem'd to me little less unlikely then considerable I took then a pound of good Salt-petre and near 3. pound of common water to observe the more narrowly Cabaeus's proportion these being put into a large new Pipkin were kept constantly and nimbly stirr'd about sometimes by me sometimes by one or other of my Domesticks relieving one another when they were weary but though the mixture was with a kind of broad glass spattle kept in a brisk motion that for the most part was 〈◊〉 the manner of a whirle-pool and sometimes a more confus'd agitation and though we kept it thus stirring for almost an hour and a half till we saw no likelihood of effecting any thing by trying our selves any further yet not only we could not perceive that any Atom of true ice was produc'd whereas according to our Authors we might have expected a true and perfect congelation of all or the greatest part of the water but we did not find that there was so much as any freezing of the vapours on the outside of the vessel and for this reason we thought 〈◊〉 about the same time to try the Experiments by another kind of Agitation and mixing two ounces of Salt-petre with about six of water in a conveniently siz'd vial we did several of us successively vehemently shake the vial too and fro till we were almost tyr'd but neither this way was there produced the least ice within the glass or the least congelation of the vapours of the Air on the outside of it 'T is true that when so great a proportion of Salt-petre began to be dissolv'd in the Pipkin the water had a sensible increase of coldness which afterwards seem'd to diminish when once the Nitre was dissolv'd but not to mention that if I much mistake not we have observ'd the water to be refrigerated when upon the dissolution of common salt multitudes of actually cold and solid Corpuscles came to be every way dispers'd through it this coldness produc'd by the Nitre was very far short of the degree requisite to congelation for to satisfie my self that my sense did not misinform me I took a good seal'd Weather-glass of about ten or twelve inches long and immersing it into the cold mixture of Nitre and Water I observ'd the tincted spirit of Wine in the stem to descend not inconsiderably and when I perceived that degree of cold to have wrought its effect I remov'd the Thermoscope into a vial fill'd with common water about which I had caus'd to be plac'd a mixture of beaten ice and salt to 〈◊〉 the contained water in which the ball of the Instrument being plac'd the spirit of Wine hastily descended two or three inches below that place at which it stood when 't was remov'd out of the Nitrous solution And for further satisfaction removing the Thermoscope once again into that solution the spirit of Wine in the stem was hastily impell'd up as if the bubble had been put into warm water And once more the Weather-glass being remov'd into the formerly mention'd 〈◊〉 water the tincted liquor began to fall down hastily again and within a while subsided almost into the bubble whereupon to avoid injuring the instrument we thought fit to take it out so that upon the whole matter if the learned Cabaeus were not deluded by mistaking some Crystals of Nitre which I have observ'd easily to shoot again in water that has been 〈◊〉 with it for true and proper ice I cannot but wonder at his assertion and must take the liberty to think my self warranted by so many Harmonious Trials as I have found unfavourable to the suppos'd supremeness of Cold in Salt-petre to retain my former opinion about it till more succesful Experiments withdraw me from it 'T is a receiv'd Tradition among the Water-men and many others that the Rivers if not Ponds also are frozen first at the bottom and begin to thaw there But though I find this opinion to be in request not only among English Water-men but among the French too yet I think it
Cochanele was boiled in water to a very high tincture and frozen and to twice four ounces of this decoction was added in one glass a little spoonful of spirit of Wine and in another as much Sea salt-water All these were frozen throughout and every part of this ice seemed to me of an equal colour though the edges as thinner and nearer the light appeared of a brighter colour as they do unfrozen but the glasses being broken shewed no discernable difference in any of them neither as to colour nor taste The like trials were made with Maddes weed and Indico and the success was the same Secondly I exposed a pint Porringer full of the decoction of soot which the air relaxing did only freez an inch thick this continued above a week consistent in a thawing season and very solid Some that saw it judged it to be brown Sugar Candy the taste whereof was near if not altogether as strong as the uncongealed liquor remaining at the bottom And in another trial when the whole was frozen no concentration was seen But though it was not my hap to find this effect my trials having been made in Vials square Cylindrical or round yet Mr. Hauk a worthy fellow of this Society happily lighted on it as you may perceive by his relation and Schemes of his Glasses hereunto annexed Some affirm as an effect of freezing an addition of weight made in the bodies frozen but this affirmation answers not my trials For in four Eggs and four Apples fully frozen I found the weight of them the same when frozen and thawed as they had before they were exposed each of the Eggs and Apples being weighed in this triple state both severally and joyntly with the particular weights I shall not trouble you Besides that freezing adds no weight 't is apparent in sealed Glasses from whence nothing can expire and by exact ponderation of them I could not perceive any the least difference in weight in the said triple state This I tried several times with as much exactness as possibly I could and still found the same event Another property of freezing is to render many bodies more friable and brittle as most woods as also Iron and Steel as every one knoweth that hath used Crosbows in frosty seasons and so likewise the bones of animals and 't is commonly observed by Chirurgions that more men break their legs and arms in such seasons then at any other time of the year especially such who have been tainted with the Lues venerea as Hildanus somewhere notes I shall now conclude the effects of freezing by ranging them into good and bad The good are the long preserving bodies most subject to putrifaction healthiness and confirming the tone of all animals and thickning the hairs and furs of such as have them fatten some Besides it exceedingly clears the air and other bodies as 't is manifest by the stinking seasalt-Seasalt-water before mentioned as also by this that follows namely I took six of the most musty stone-Bottles I could procure and competently fill'd them with water which after freezing and thawing again became as sweet as ever they were before Bad effects are the killing and destroying animals and vegetables by congealing and stopping their vital and nourishing juices rendring them totally immovable 'T is observable that in Greenland and Nova Zembla nothing but grass grows as also what was told me by Dr. Collins the present Physician of the Emperor of Russia that no thorny plant nor thistles grow in that Countrey And this present year most of the Rosemary and Sage about London was wholly destroyed besides most of the more tender Plants My fourth proposal was the properties and qualities of ice some whereof my task engageth me to enumerate only such are its slipperiness smoothness hardness whereby and by its bulk and motion it breaks down bridges c. its firmness and strength to bear carriages and burdens its diaphaneity which is much less then the liquor of which 't is made For I could never discern any object though but confusedly a foot beyond the clearest piece of ice by reason of the many bubbles and luminous parts within it Which bubbles shew only shadows but the ice its self interposed betwixt your eye and a candle appears in many round circles from which proceeds many rays of light four or five or more in the form of a Star of about a ¼ of an inch in diameter which so glase your eyes you can scarcely see any thing but bright light and shadow As for its penetration and thickness something hath been said above to which I shall add that I have seen the Thames ice of the thickness of eight inches or more near the middle of the River and on the sides much more And in Garden walks the earth frozen near two foot deep whereas on the sides of the same walks on a richer mould the frost did not reach much above one foot and ¼ and Pipes of Lead have been broken above a foot under the surface of the ground I shall not mention the huge mountains of ice found in the most Northerly Seas but proceed to its weight 'T is generally known that ice swims upon the water But I have seen snow-balls moistened only with water and then compressed with a strong force and afterwards frozen to sink besides the congealed oyl of Vitriol descends in water and common ice is frequently observed under water whether the solutions of salts frozen will sink was by me forgotten to observe and whether coagulated oyl will sink in unfrozen as Bartholine affirms Some affirm that snow-balls hard pressed without addition of water will sink but experience teacheth me the contrary As for its tactile qualities every one knows 't is colder then water which you may increase by adding salt unto it or rather snow Smell it hath none but it binds up that quality in all but most spirituous bodies which it also in some degrees refracts in them Lastly ice yields both reflection and refraction whereof I shall speak when I come to its uses My fifth head was lets and helps in freezing which I shall 〈◊〉 dispatch Those besides the North and North-east winds the absence of the Sun and the highest parts of houses or mountains are the mixture of snow and salt then which there 's nothing more painfully and unsufferably cold to my feeling as is apparant by the trick of freezing with snow and salt by the fire side as also by the ingenious way of making cups of ice invented by an incomparable person Add hereunto that water falling or thrown upon ice or snow soon becomes congealed A mixture also of ice beaten into powder and mixed with common Sea-salt which is best or with Kelp Alume Vitriol or Nitre And here note that vessels fill'd with water and set in these mixtures begin their freezing at the bottom of the liquor and consequently are not so subject to be broken as those are which are not set in these
immersion of the Glass into water not only a while before noon but an hour or two after dinner and at distant hours afterwards though the Descent of the Pendulous water was neither so quick nor so considerable as it had been formerly in the Mornings June 27. In the morning a small Cylinder of Water pendulous in the above mentioned Glass upon the immersion of the Egge in a Bason of water would immediately and very considerably subside whereas the same glass being immersed in the Vessel of Quicksilver formerly mentioned 〈◊〉 presently ascend Both parts of this Experiment we several times tried and the Reason was suspected to be that the Quicksilver had stay'd all night in my Chamber which was somewhat warm whereas the water was brought up that morning and to the touch seem'd colder then the Quicksilver and a while after dinner the same water having been still kept in the room we divers times found that as well That as the Quicksilver did immediately upon immersion impel up the pendulous water in the slender pipe Another time in frosty weather and about the beginning of January we did with such a glass as has been already several times mention'd take somedrops of water out of a vessel wherein that Liquor had for a good while been kept that it might be reduc'd as near as we could to the Temperature of the Ambient Air then 〈◊〉 the suspended water to continue a convenient while in the long and slender stem of the Weather-glass that the internal Air might be reduc'd to the temper of the external we took up the Glass by the open end and immersing the obtuse part of It into a shallow Vessel containing some of the above mentioned Water we found the suspended drop suddenly impell'd upwards about half an Inch or more and the Ball of the Thermometer being taken out of the Water into the Air the pendulous drop did again though far more slowly then it ascended subside This was repeated three or four times with some intervals between and that in a Room where there was no Chimney and still with the like success save that in the two last Trials we took the Weather-glass out of the shallow water and plunging it into a deep vessel of the same water that stood very near the other we found for further confirmation of the Experiment that the pendulous water was upon these new immersions impell'd up near if not full as high again as when we had immers'd it only in the shallow vessel and taking it out of this deep Glass we found the Cold of the external Air to reduce It to its former humble station Thus far the notes I have yet been able to recover and though as I said I dare not build very much upon them yet by small seal'd Weather-glasses I find enough to invite me to suspect that of the degrees of heat and cold in the Air we may receive differing informations when we imploy only our Organs of Touching and when we make use of fit Instruments I shall add on this occasion that not only water it self but moist vapours abounding in the Air may make Us think it colder then the Weather-glass discovers it to be For though it be generally taken for granted that the Thermometer does only more exactly measure or determine the Effects which cold hath both upon it and upon our Sensories yet I have long suspected that there is somewhat else in the case And I have observ'd that sometimes the weather seem'd more or less cold to me then that which preceded when the contrary appear'd in the Weather-glass and that when upon consideration of the whole matter that difference did not appear to depend upon those circumstances of Exercise or Rest or the Temperature of the Air I came out of or any of those other things to which a considerate man that goes upon no better then the common opinions about Weather-glasses would be apt to impute to that Phaenomenon And I was the less dispos'd to think my self mistaken because having purposely enquir'd of others in the same house who were not told what Information the Weather-glass gave they agreed with me in the sense I had of the Temperature of the Weather And having since as occasion serv'd communicated my Observations and suspitions to divers Ingenious Men I have been by their recenter Observations confirm'd that what I have taken notice of was not the Effect of any 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 From which and other particulars that we may have elsewhere opportunity to mention we may plausibly enough infer that it were not amiss not only to take notice when we have opportunity of the sense that is Express'd of the degrees of Cold by Birds and other animals whose diet is more simple and regular then ours and whose perceptions are commonly more delicate and less diverted but especially to examine the coldness of the Air and other Bodies as well by Experiments and instruments as by the touch And on this Occasion I must not pretermit that memorable Account that is given us by Martinius in that Noble piece of Geography which he calls Atlas Chinensis where speaking of the Air of that populous Countrey he has this singular passage Ad Caeli says he solique temperiem quod attinet majus in hac provinciâ frigus est quà m illius poscat poli altitudo vix enim illa excedit gradum secundum supra quadragesimum tamen per integros quatuor saepe menses flumina omnia adeò durè concrescunt gelu ut currus equosque 〈◊〉 gravissima etiam onera glacies ferat innoxiè acsecurissimè transeant ex iis ingentia etiam glaciei frusta exscindūtur quae in futuram aestatem ad delicias servant His 〈◊〉 omnes naves ita in ipsâ glacie defixae sunt ut progredi nequeant ubicunque illas frigus occupat quod certo certius circa medium Novembris ingruere solet per quatuor illos menses immotae ibi perstare coguntur neque enim resolvitur glacies ante Martii initium haec plerumque glaciei concretio uno fit die cum non nisi pluribus fiat liquefactio to which he adds what makes most to our present purpose 〈◊〉 illud mirum tantum non videri aut sentiri illud frigus ut Europeos ad hypocausta subeunda videatur posse cogere aut in Europâ ad glaciem producendam 〈◊〉 unde ad subterraneas illic exhalationes pro harum rerum causis indagandis 〈◊〉 recurrendum est c. But all that I have been implying of the Necessity and Usefulness of the Weather-glass is no way inconsistent with the truth of the latter part of our formerly propos'd paradox namely that we are not rashly to rely upon the Informations even of common Weather-glasses themselves For though they be an excellent Invention and their Informations in many Cases preferable to those of our senses because those Dead Engins are not in such cases obnoxious to the same Causes of uncertainty
Limbeck might not during a good part of the year be of some use to us in making and judging of Weather-glasses For this Liquor as we 〈◊〉 also note having the peculiarity of loosing its fluidity during almost all the Winter and a good part of the Spring and Autumn too when the Weather or the time of the day is colder this Liquor I say being such in case you very gently thaw it and then putting into it the Ball of a Weather-glass furnish'd with spirit of Wine that will burn all away you suffer the oyl to re-congeal leisurely of it self you may by observing the station of the spirit of Wine in the Thermoscope when the Oyl begins manifestly to curdle about it be in some measure assisted to make another Weather-glass like it For if you put such rectified spirit of Wine into a Glass the Cavity of whose Sphaerical and that of its Cylindrical part are as near as may be equal to the correspondent Cavities in the former Glass you may by some heedful Trials made with thaw'd and recongeal'd oyl of Aniseeds bring the second Weather-glass to be somewhat like the first and if you know the Quantity of your spirit of Wine you may easily enough make an estimate by the place it reaches to in the Neck of the Instrument whose capacity you also know whether it expands or contracts it self to the 40 the 30 or the 20 part c. of the 〈◊〉 it was of when the Weather-glass was made By the help of the same Oyl you may make some kind of estimate though a more uncertain one of the difference of two Weather-glasses of unequal bigness And though I know how much may be alledg'd to show the uncertainty of this way of making a Standard for Weather-glasses yet as what I have formerly represented may manifest me to be far enough from looking on it as an exact Standard of Cold so perhaps the way propos'd may not be altogether useless in the making and comparing Weather-glasses since in such cases where we are not to expect to hit the mark it self it is of some advantage to be able to shoot less wide of it then otherwise we should II. But not to insist any further on a difficulty which is so hardly 〈◊〉 as that which occurs about setling a perfect Standard of Cold there are unaccuratenesses in the measuring of Cold by Weather-glasses which may be avoided but are not For Men are not wont to take care that the Stems be even and Cylindrical enough but are wont to make use of such as are much wider at the upper part near the bubble then otherwhere nor do they observe as they might a proportion betwixt the Diameter of the Bore of the Cylinder and that of the Cavity of the Sphaerical Bubble and divers other circumstances are commonly neglected which if well order'd would make much towards the Certainty and instructiveness of the Informations afforded us by Weather-glasses To which may be added that even in those where some part of the Liquor is expos'd to the external Air there may be made Contrivances much more convenient in order at least to some particular purposes then that of the Vulgar Weather-glass some of which we have imploy'd and others have been either skilfully devis'd or also happily attempted by some eminently ingenious Members of the Royal Society And though that which we have already discrib'd in another Treatise be very simple yet it is much more commodious for several of the following Experiments of Cold then that which is commonly in use For in this where the included Air is as it were pendulous at the Top of the Glass 't is very troublesome and difficult so to apply Cold Bodies and especially Liquid ones to it as therewith to measure their Temper whereas the Thermometers I speak of being made by the insertion of a Cylindrical pipe of Glass open at both ends into a Viol or Bottle and by exactly stopping with sealing wax or very close Cement the Mouth of the Viol that the included Air may have no communication with the External but by the newly mentioned Pipe In this kind of Instrument I say by chusing a Viol as large as you please and fitting it with a Cylynder slender enough the proportion between the part of the Viol possest by included Air and the Cavity of the Cylinder in which the Liquor is to play up and down may be easily made so great as to make the Liquor in this Instrument with the same degree of Heat or Cold rise or fall four or five or more times as much as the pendulous Liquor is wont to do in an Ordinary Weather-glass where the cavity that lodges the Air is wont to be much too small considering the Bigness of the pipe whereinto the Air must when 't is rarifi'd expand it self But 't is not the greater sensibility if I may so speak of this very kind of Weather-glasses nor their not needing frames that makes me take notice of them in this place where I purposely pass by contrivances that I know to be more curious but this other Quality which makes them fit for divers of the following Experiments wherein we shall have occasion to mention them namely that with little or no trouble and inconvenience we may imploy Liquors or other Bodies to refrigerate the included Air by immersing the Viol if need be by a weight into the Liquor to be examin'd and letting it stand there as long as we please And so we may also measure the Coldness of Earth Snow powder'd Ice and other consistent Bodies which may be heap'd about the Viol or in which it may be buri'd III. I consider too that though men are wont confidently enough to conclude that in case for instance the Coldness of the weather make the Liquor in a Thermoscope yesterday an Inch higher then 't was the day before and this day an Inch higher then 't was yesterday the Air must be this day as cold again as it was yesterday or at least that the increase of Cold must be double to what it was yesterday and so in other proportions yet the Validity of this Collection may very justly be Question'd For though we should grant that Cold is that which of it self or by its own power contracts the Air yet how does it appear that a double degree of Cold must produce a double degree of condensation in the Air and not either more or less Since besides that 't is taken for granted but not prov'd that the differing Quantities of included Air in several Instruments and the differing bignesses of the Pipes and the differing degrees of Expansion wherein the included Air may happen to be when the Ascension of the Water begins to be reckon'd may render this Hypothesis very suspicious besides all this I say I am not inclin'd to grant what Philosophers have hitherto suppos'd that the Condensation of the Air and the ascension of the Water is only or so much
as principally affected by the proper Virtue of the Cold but by the pressure of the Ambient Air as we shall ere long more fully declare And if this be made out then the computation we are considering will be found to be very fallacious for we have elsewhere shown That the strengths requir'd to compress Air are in reciprocal proportion or there abouts to the spaces comprehending the same portion of Air so that if a Cylinder for instance of four Inches of Air be just able to resist a strength or pressure equivalent to 10. pound weight when it comes to be compress'd into two Inches in this case I say an equal force superadded to the former which makes that a double force or equivalent to 20 pound weight will drive up that already comprest Air into half the space that is into one Inch or thereabouts whence it follows that in estimating the condensation of the Air in a Weather-glass we must not only consider how much space it is made to desert but also what proportion that deserted space bears to the whole space it formerly possest and to what degree of density it was reduc'd before the application of the then force and we must remember that the resistence of the included Air is not to be look'd upon as that of a weight which may remain always the same but that of a spring forcibly bent and which is increas'd more and more as it is crowded into less and less Room But these Nicer speculations it would here be somewhat improper to pursue IV. Wherefore I shall proceed to what may seem a Paradox that even the particular Nature of the Liquors imploy'd in Weather-glasses is not altogether to be neglected till we have a better and more determinate Theory of the causes of Cold then I fear we have For though usually it matters not much what Liquor you imploy yet 't is not impossible that in some cases men may slip into mistakes about them for it will not follow that if of two Liquors the one be much the more obnoxious to the higher degree of Cold that of Glaciation the other must be less easily susceptible of the lower degrees of Cold since those that make seal'd Weather-glasses some with water and some with spirit of wine have confessed to me that they find these last nam'd much more apt to receive notable impressions from faint degrees of Cold then those that are furnished but with water and which yet is easily turn'd into Ice by the cold of our Climate which will by no means produce the like effect upon pure spirit of Wine Besides we cannot always safely conclude as Philosophers and Chymists generally do that the more subtile and spirituous Liquors must be the least capable of being congealed that is made to lose its fluidity as oyl and some other substances are wont to be reduc'd to do by the Action of Cold for the Chymical Oyl of Aniseeds distill'd by a Limbeck is so hot and strong a Liquor that a few drops of it conveniently dissolv'd will make a whole Cup of Beer taste as strong and perhaps heat the Body as much as so much Wine and yet this hot and subtile Liquor I have found upon Trial purposely made to be more easily congealable in the sense freshly explain'd by cold then even common water and to continue so several days after a Thaw had resolv'd the common Ice into fluid water again And I know some distill'd Liquors whose component particles are so piercing and so vehemently agitated that the tongue cannot suffer them and they are not perhaps inferior to most Chymical Oyls nor to Aquafortis it self and yet these may be congeal'd by far less degrees of Cold then such as would yet prove ineffectual to freez either the generality of Chymical Oyls or the generality of saline spirits And indeed till we attain to some more determinate Theory of Cold and come to know more touching its causes then we yet do I see not why it should be absurd to suspect that though there be some kind of Bodies which seem fitted to produce Cold indiscriminately in the Bodies they invade or touch yet if the refrigeration of a Body be but the lessening of the wonted or former agitation of its parts from what cause soever that remisness proceeds it seems not impossible but that besides those Bodies or Corpuscles that may be look'd upon as the Catholick Efficients of Cold there may be particular Agents which in reference to this or that particular Body may be call'd frigorifick though they would not so much refrigerate another Body which perhaps would be more easily affected then the former by 〈◊〉 efficients of Cold. For we may observe that Quicksilver may be congeal'd by the Steams of Lead which have not been taken notice of to have any such Effect upon any other fluid Body and yet Quicksilver is not to be depriv'd of its fluidity by such a degree of Cold as would freez not only water but wine And by what we have formerly related upon the credit of that great Traveller the Jesuit Martinius it seems that water it self may in some Regions be so dispos'd by the constitution of the Soyl that 't is susceptible of strange impressions of Cold in proportion to the Effect which that degree of Cold produces there in humane Bodies Besides Opium also of which three or four grains have too oft destroyed the heat of the whole mass of Blood in a mans Body though that be a very hot subtile and spirituous Liquor does not sensibly refrigerate water as far as I could observe with a good seal'd Weather-glass which I put sometimes in a glass of ordinary water and sometimes into a glass of water of the same Temper and as we guess'd of the same Quantity wherein Opium enough to kill very many men was put in thin slices and suffered to dissolve which seems to argue that as differing Liquors have each their peculiar Texture so there may be certain Bodies whose minute particles by their peculiar seize shape and motion may be qualified to hinder or at least lessen the agitation of the particles of the appropriated Liquor into whose pores they insinuate themselves And thereby according to the lately mention'd supposition they may refrigerate that particular Liquor without having the like Effect on other Liquors whose Textures are differing And I might countenance this by adding that as fiery and agitated a spirit as that of wine when well 〈◊〉 is justly thought to be yet I know more liquors then one that being mingled with it will in a trice deprive it of its 〈◊〉 and the like change I have sometimes made in some other liquors also But I must not insist on such matters having mention'd them but only to awaken mens curiosity and circumspection and not to build much upon them which will be easily credited if it be remembred that a little above I my self sufficiently intimated that this Conjecture supposes something about the
I am now upon for whilest I was yesterday writing It I had occasion to Examine by such a Seal'd Weather-glass as I have been speaking of the Temper of a certain strange kind of mixture that towards the close of this Treatise I shall have Occasion to take special Notice of and though to the touch it appear'd but Lukewarm yet having put into it the Ball and part of the stem of the seal'd Weather-glass I found the Included Liquor slowly enough impell'd up so high that at length to my wonder it rose eight or nine Inches in a Stem which was not much above a foot long but that which I relate as the surprizing Circumstance is that when I had taken out the Thermoscope and remov'd it again into a deep Glass full of Cold water whence I had just before taken it out to put it into the Anomalous mixture I had a mind to examine the Tincture in the Weather-glass did not as it was wont and as any one would have expected begin to subside again towards its former station but continued within about half an Inch or less of the very Top of the Instrument though neither my own busie Eyes nor those of a person very well Vers'd in making and using Thermoscopes could perceive that the expanded Tincture was any where discontinued by any Air or Bubbles which at first we suspected might possibly though it were very unlikely have been generated by the Tepor of the mixture But that which continued our wonder if not increased it was that during four or five hours that the Instrument continued in the Cold water and during some hours also that it was expos'd to the Air the Tincture did not subside above half an Inch and which is yet more strange having left the Glass all night in the window of a Room where there was no Chimney I found in the morning that its descent was scarce sensibly greater for it continued about eight Inches higher then the mark it stood at when I first put it into the Lukewarm mixture and how long it will yet retain this strange expansion is more then I can tell But by this and what I may have occasion hereafter to relate concerning this mixture it may appear somewhat the more reasonable to suspect that even seal'd Weather-glasses furnished with high rectifi'd spirit of Wine may in some though very rare conjunctures of Circumstances and from some peculiar Agents either by their insinuating themselves through the Pores of the Glass or on some other Account receive impressions that as far as can easily be discern'd are not purely the genuine and wonted Operations of Heat and Cold. The Chymist Orthelius tells us that the Liquor distill'd from the Oar of Magnesia or Bismute which seems to be the same Mineral that we in English call Tin-glass will swell in the Glass 't is kept in not only manifestly but very considerably at the full Moon and shrink at the new Moon and if all my endeavours to procure that Oar had not prov'd fruitless I should be able by my own Experience to disprove or confirm so admirable a Phaenomenon but being as yet unfurnish'd to make the Trial my self lest it might appear a Vanity so much as to mention without rejecting it a thing so very unlikely I shall add that since I find the Thing for the main which was delivered by the Chymist imploy'd as an Argument by a famous Mathematician the Jesuite Casatus whose expressions are such as if he himself had observ'd that even in stopt Glasses the foremention'd Mineral spirit increased very sensibly in Bulk about the time of the full Moon which wonder being admitted may not only countenance what we were saying but hint some other very strange things in Nature This brings into my mind what I have elsewhere mention'd that a Tincture of Amber I had made with high rectifi'd spirit of Wine did for many Moneths in a well stopt Glass discover it self to be affected with certain changes which were thought to proceed from some secret mutations of the Air that did sensibly so work as I had not observed it to do upon other Liquors wherein the spirit of Wine abounded And perhaps upon long and diligent observation one might find a Disparity betwixt Weather-glasses kept in the same place but furnished with differing Liquors a Disparity I say that could not be so well ascrib'd to any thing as to the peculiar Nature of the Respective Liquors which though of divers kinds may to add that towards the facilitation of Trials be made of a very conspicuous colour by the self-same Metal Copper which not only gives the Known colour in Aqua fortis but affords a fair solution in Aqua Regis and it makes a Liquor of a most deep and lovely blew in spirit of Urine or of Sal Armoniack and the like nay I have found that in good Chymical Oyl of Turpentine for express'd oyls are too easily congeal'd the bare filings of it will yield a sufficient Tincture But because it is yet but a bare suspicion that Seal'd Weather-glasses made of differing Liquors but in other points alike may be otherwise then uniformly affected by the Temperature of the External Air I shall now add an observation already made to show that even the Seal'd Weather-glasses furnish'd with spirit of Wine are not so perfectly secluded from all commerce with external Bodies and liableness to their operations but that they may be wrought upon otherwise then we think For I have more then once observ'd that even in seal'd Thermoscopes made purposely at home for me and with great care by the expertest maker of Them after a good while and when no such matter was expected there have emerg'd Bubbles which whether they proceeded from some undiscernable Particles of Air harbour'd in the Pores of the Water which in process of time by their Union came to make conspicuous Bubbles or from some dispos'd particles of the spirit of Wine it self by successive alterations brought to a state of Elasticity I now examine not but only affirm that sometimes I have had of these Bubbles great enough to possess the space of many Inches in the shank of a long seal'd Weather-glass and I have been troubled with them in more Weather-glasses then one or two which I therefore take Notice of not only because it serves to prove what I was saying but because it is very fit an Advertisement should be given of it to prevent mistakes For when these Bubbles are small and are generated or happen to stay at or about the Place where the Sphaerical and Cylindrical parts of the Glass meet they may easily as I have observ'd lurk unheeded and reaching from side to side so divide the spirit of Wine in the Ball from That in the Stem that the latter shall not be able 〈◊〉 rise and fall according to the changes of the weather the Bubble notwithstanding its aerial nature being more indispos'd to be mov'd up and
confidently rejected then This harsh Hypothesis of Rarefaction Of which I should think it injurious to so judicious a Philosopher as my Lord Brouncher to indeavour here to manifest the absurdity though I had not in another place shewn it already The next Opinion we are to consider touching the cause of the ascension of Water by cold in Weather-glasses is that of Mr. 〈◊〉 who in the last Chapter of his Book de Corpore Sect. the 12. having premis'd a delineation of a common Weather-glass subjoyns this Explication In the sixth and seventh Articles of the 27. Chap. where I consider the cause of Cold I have shewn that fluid Bodies are made colder by the pressure of the Air that is to say by a constant wind that presseth them For the same cause it is that the superficies of the water is press'd at F and having no place to which it may retire from this pressure besides the Cavity of the Cylinder between H and E it is therefore necessarily forced thither by the Cold and consequently it ascendeth more or less according as the Cold is more or less increas'd And again as the Heat is more intense or the Cold more remiss the same water will be depress'd more or less by its own gravity that is to say by the cause of gravity above explicated But however the Author of this Explication to prepare us to receive it tell us that however the above mention'd Phaenomenon be certainly known to be true by experience the cause nevertheless has not yet been discover'd yet I confess I think this newly recited assertion might as well have been plac'd after his explication as just before it For first whereas he remits us to the sixth and seventh Articles of the 27. Chapter for the reference is misprinted as containing the grounds of this Explication I must profess my self far from being satisfi'd with the general Theory of Cold deliver'd in that Chapter as being partly precarious partly insufficient and partly scarce intelligible as I shall elsewhere have Occasion to shew and as for what he particularly alledges in the sixth and seventh Articles of a constant wind that presses fluid Bodies and makes them Cold besides that that is prooflesly affirm'd we shall anon have Occasion to mention an Experiment where water was not only much refrigerated but turn'd into Ice though it were seal'd up in Glass Vessels and those suspended too in other Glasses wherein some of them had Air about them and some others were totally immers'd in unfreezing Liquors so that the water that was seal'd up was sufficiently protected from being raked by the wind as Mr. Hob's conceipt of the Cause of freezing requires Secondly I see no necessity that the Cold should press up the superficies of the Water into the shank of the Weather-glass especially since 't is manifest that the Water will rise with Cold in a Weather-glass kept in a still place and free from any sensible wind Besides that it should be prov'd and not barely affirm'd that an insensible Motion deserves the name of wind and that such a one is the cause of the refrigeration of water and it should be also shewn how this wind comes to be able to raise the water and that to the height of many Inches more in one part of the superficies then in another Besides all this I say we find by Experience that Water powred into a Bolthead till it have fill'd the Ball and reach'd a good way into the Stem will upon a powerful refrigeration short of freezing which is the case of water in Weather-glasses when the Air grows colder manifestly shrink into a narrower room instead of being impell'd up higher in the Pipe And if in an ordinary Weather-glass with a long shank you apply a mixture of Ice or Snow and Salt to the Bolthead the water will readily ascend in the shank to the height of divers Inches which how it will be explain'd by Mr. Hob's Hypothesis I do not well see Thirdly I wonder he should tell us that the reason why the press'd water ascends into the shank of the Weather-glass is because it hath no other place into which it may retire from the pressure of the wind since he rejecting a Vacuum and affirming the world to be every where perfectly full should not methinks have so soon forgotten that in the very Paragraph or Section immediately preceding this himself had told us that he cannot imagine how the same place can be always full and nevertheless contain sometimes a greater sometimes a less Quantity of matter that is to say that it can be fuller then full So that I see not why the water should find more room to entertain it in the Cylindrical cavity of the Weather-glass already adequately fill'd with Air then otherwhere And in the seal'd Weather-glasses we have above been mentioning and wherein the water descends with Cold 't will be very hard for Mr. Hobs to make out the Phaenomenon according to his doctrine Besides that his Explication gives us no account of the Condensation of the Air by cold in such Weather-glasses as those wherein the water descends with Cold and rises with Heat Fourthly and lastly whereas Mr. Hobs takes notice of no other cause of the 〈◊〉 of water in Weather-glasses by Heat but it s own gravity he seems to have but slightly consider'd the matter For though in some cases the gravity of the water may suffice to depress it yet in other cases that gravity alone will by no means serve the turn but we must have recourse to the expansive Motion or spring of the Air included in the Cavity of the Glass For if you place a Thermometer with a large Ball wherein the water ascends but a little way into the shank in a window expos'd to the warm Sun you will often perceive the surface of the water in the Pipe to be a good deal lower then that of the water on the outside of the Pipe which shews that this depression proceeds not from the bare sinking of the water but from its being thrust down by the pressure of the incumbent Air since the waters own weight would make the internal water fall but to a level with the surface of the external water and not so much beneath it And for further proof you may by keeping such a Weather-glass long enough in the hot Sun bring the Air so far to expand it self as to drive the water out of the shank and break through the external water in divers conspicuous Bubbles after whose eruption the remaining Air being again refrigerated by the removal of the Weather-glass into a cooler place the loss of that part of the Air that escap'd away in Bubbles will make the water ascend higher in the shank then in the like degree of Cold it would formerly have been impell'd And thus much may suffice to shew the unsatisfactoriness of Mr. Hob's conceipt The third and last opinion we shall mention is that of some
ingenious modern Naturalists who acknowledging that the Air has a weight which Mr. Hobs also does in effect admit though he make not so good use of it as they do by that explicate the ascension of water in Weather-glasses teaching that the Cold of the Ambient Air making the included Air shrink into far less room then it possest before the water in the subjacent Vessel is by the weight of the incumbent Air which presses on it more forcibly in all the other parts of its surface then it is press'd upon in that included in the shank impell'd up into that part of the shank which was newly deserted by the self-contracting Air. But though this Account be preferable by far to those which we mention'd before it and though it be not only ingenious but as far as it reaches true yet to me I confess it seems not sufficient and therefore I would supply what is defective by taking in the pressure and in some cases the spring of the external Air not only against the surface of water for That the newly mention'd explication likewise does but also against the internal or included Air. For the recited Hypothesis gives indeed a rational account why the water is impell'd into the place deserted by the Air but then supposes that the Air is made to contract it self by cold alone when it makes room for the water that succeeds in its place whereas I am apt to think that both the effects may proceed at least in great part from the same cause and that the pressure of the contiguous and neighbouring Air does according to my Conjecture eminently concur to reduce the cool'd Air shut up in the Weather-glass into a narrower space This it does in common Weather-glasses because the Ambient Air retains the whole pressure it has upon the Account of its weight whereas the internal Air by its refrigeration even when but equal to that of the External Air looses part of the pressure it had upon the account of its now weakned spring But this as I newly intimated is not the sole account upon which the Air may in some sorts of Weather-glasses impel up the water and contribute to the condensation of the Air incumbent on the water For in some circumstances one or two of which we shall produce by and by it may so happen that the rest of the Air that bears upon the water to be rais'd will not be so much refrigerated as the included Air that is to be condens'd and consequently the other Air will have a stronger spring then this last mention'd Air will retain and therefore the former will have a greater pressure then the latter will be able to resist We shall not now examine whether the spring of the Air depend upon the springy structure of each aerial Corpuscle as the spring of wool does upon the Texture of the particular hairs it consists of or upon the agitation of some interfluent subtile matter that in its passage through the aerial particles whirles each of them about or upon both these causes together or upon some other differing from either of them but this seems probable enough that as when Air being seal'd up in a Glass is afterwards well heated though it acquire not any greater dimensions as to sense then it had before yet it has its spring much increased by the Heat as may appear if the seal'd Tip be broken under water by the eruption of Bubbles by the indeavour of the imprison'd Air to expand it self so upon the refrigeration of the Air so seal'd up though the additional spring if I may so speak which the Heat gave it will be lost upon the recess of that Heat or as soon as the effect of that heat is distroy'd yet there will remain in the included Air a considerable spring and sufficient to make it as well fill at least as to sense the cavity of the seal'd Glass as it did when its spring was stronger And proportionably we may conceive that though Cold at least such as we meet with in this climate of ours do make the spring of an included parcel of Air weaker then it was before the refrigeration of that Air yet it may not make it so much weaker but that the aerial Corpuscles may be kept so far extended as not at all or scarce sensibly to quit the room they possest before in case there be not contiguous to them any other Body which by its pressure indeavours to thrust them inwards and so make them desert part of that space which clause I therefore add because that if the case propos'd do happen 't is obvious to conceive that the weakned spring of the Air cannot retain so much force to resist an external pressure as it would have if the Cold had not debilitated it and consequently this cooled Air must yield and suffer it self to be condens'd if it come to be expos'd to a pressure to which it was but equal before its being weakned And such in common Weather-glasses is the pressure that is constantly upon the surface of the water without the Pipe upon the account of the gravity of as much of the Air or Atmosphaere as comes to bear upon it Having thus explain'd our conjecture we will now proceed to the Experiments we made to countenance it as we find them entred in our loose notes In one of which I find what follows We took a Viol capable of containing five or six ounces of water and having fill'd it almost half full with that Liquor we inverted into it a Glass-pipe of about 10. Inches long and much bigger then a large Swans Quill seal'd at one end and at the other fill'd top full with water so that the open Orifice being immers'd under the Vessell'd water of the Viol there remain'd no Air at the Top of the Pipe Then as much of the Orifice of the Viols neck as was not fill'd by the pipe being carefully clos'd with Cement that no Air could get in or out the Viol was plac'd in snow and salt till the vessell'd water began to freez at the Top and Bottom And according to our expectation we found that notwithstanding this great degree of infrigeration of the Air in the Viol the water in the Pipe did not at all descend So that either the Air did not shrink by so great a Cold or the water whether to avoid a vacuum or otherwise did not remove out of the Pipe to possess the place deserted by the refrigerated Air. Afterwards we endeavoured to repeat the Experiment with the same Glasses but having had occasion to be absent a little too long though not very long we found at our return the upper and seal'd part of the pipe beaten out which we suppos'd to have been done by the intumescence of the water in the Viol upon its glaciation Wherefore we fastned into the same Viol another Pipe some Inches longer then the former and drawn very slender at the seal'd end that it might
to that we here employed obtain Ice And though in this metalline Sugar we may well suppose the Saline parts of the spirit of Vinegre to be much more concentrated or united then they were in the spirit yet the solution must abound with aqueous parts and this Sugar seeming but a kind of Vitriol of Lead 't is worth our Notice that its solution would not freez as well as that of common Vitriol though in this latter concrete the metal be corroded by a spirit which as far as can be judged by the Liquors afforded in distillation is very much sharper and stronger then spirit of Vinegre 5. We likewise tried to freez Quick silver and for that purpose provided a bubble that being blown with a Lamp was but thin and so flat that the sides almost touched and it held but a little Mercury and that by the figure of the Glass being reduced to a large surface with but very little depth or thickness it was far more exposed then if it had been in a ordinary round Bubble to the action of the cold but we could not at all freez this extravagant liquor though we tried it more then once and though the last time we exposed it in the same 〈◊〉 to the same degree of Cold wherewith we made one of the following Experiments that required a very Intense degree of that Quality And in another thin glass-Bubble we long exposed Quicksilver to an extraordinary sharp air but though the cold had some operation upon it not here necessary to be mention'd yet we could not find that it did at all bring it to freez wherefore I could wish that trial were made in Muscovy Greenland Charles Island or some other of the most 〈◊〉 Regions where the Effects of cold which here are upon Quicksilver but languid are the most considerable and sometimes stupendious 6. It is very remarkable that though not only the solutions of other gross salts but as we have seen divers more saline and spirituous liquors were brought by snow and salt to Congelation yet a brine made very strong of Common salt could not be brought to freez at all though we kept it exposed with the other saline solutions that did freez during a whole night that was exceeding sharp Which Experiment I also tried many years since to draw thence an Argument in favour of the Cartestan Hypothesis about cold which I shall not now consider but rather add that being desirous to try with what proportions of Sea salt and water the congelation of them might be effected I found I could freez some Sea water that had been brought up in a Barrel to that Monarch of the Virtuosi the King for the making of trials with it and that having in a single vial exposed to the Air in a very bitter night a solution consisting of twenty parts of water and one of salt which is double the proportion of salt to be commonly found in our Sea-water the next day we found a good part of the Liquor frozen the Ice swimming at the top in figures almost like Broom spreading from the surface of the water downwards And to add That upon the by we suffered the Ice of salt-water to thaw to try whether it would yield fresh water but it seemed not devoid of some Brackishness which whether or no it proceeded from some parts of the contiguous brine that adhered to the Ice I leave to further and exacter observations since I am credibly informed that in Amsterdam there are divers that use the thaw'd Ice of the Sea-water to brew their Beer with instead of common fresh water 3. And since I made that Experiment I find in the industrious Bartholinus's newly publish'd Book De Nivis usu a Confirmation of the probability of the Report I just now mention'd his words being these De Glacie ex marinâ aquâ certum est siresolvatur salsum saporem deposuisse quod etiam non ita pridem expertus est Cl. Jacobus Finckius Academiae nostrae senior Physices Professor benè meritus in glaciei frustis è portu nostro allatis Title IIII. Experiments and Observations touching the Degrees of Cold in several Bodies 1. AFter having treated of the Bodies that are the most capable of producing Cold and of those that are most dispos'd or indispos'd to receive it it would be Methodical to take notice of the Degrees of Cold to be met with in differing Bodies But though a work of this nature might somewhat conduce to the Discovery of Cold in general yet it is so laborious a Task and to be well perform'd requires so much more of Leisure and Conveniency then I am Master of that I must resign it to those that are better furnish'd with them which I the freelier do because the Experiments which at this Time make the principal part of our History being chiefly of the highest Degrees of Cold we may seem to have done something of what more 〈◊〉 concerns our present Design by having made the Experiments anon to be subjoyn'd within this present Section or Title And yet thus much we elsewhere do towards the framing of a Table of the Degrees of Cold that we do on other occasions set down those hitherto unpractis'd ways that we have imploy'd to estimate the greater or lesser Coldness of Bodies by several kinds of Weather-glasses differing from the common ones and far more fit then they for such a Purpose For by Hermetically seal'd Thermoscopes furnish'd with high rectifi'd spirit of Wine we can estimate the differing degrees of Coldness in Liquors of which we shall presently mention an Example And by using such Weather-glasses as have their Air included not at the top but at the bottom of the Instrument we can within some reasonable Latitude measure the Coldness both of intire solid Bodies or minuter Bodies as Salts c. by beating them alike and very small and placing the Instruments at equal Depths in the powder of each of them And besides that the shape of these Thermoscopes does as we have elsewhere shewn make them proper for these uses for which the vulgar ones where the included Air is at the top of the Instrument are not fit besides this I say 't is easie in these we make use of to make the Pipe so slender in proportion to the Cavity of the Vial whereinto 't is inserted that very much minuter Differences of Cold will be manifest in these then are wont to be sensible in common Weather-glasses And besides these two sorts we have elsewhere propos'd and describ'd a third and new kind of Thermometer wherein a drop of liquor being suspended in a very slender Pipe of Glass betwixt the outward and the inward Air makes it far more fit for those Experiments wherein we either despair or care not to measure the Difference of Cold betwixt two Bodies but are only desirous to try whether or no they differ in Coldness and in case they do which of them has most For
consequently does the former and thereby spoils the Experiment before it be come to perfection or have let us see what Nature would have done if she had not been thus hindred in her work 7. The consideration of this invited me to alter the common way of freezing and order the matter so that whensoever I pleased the exposed liquor should not begin to freez at the top or sides but at the bottom which I concluded it very easie to do by mingling the salt with that part only of the snow which was to lye beneath and about the bottom of the glass I placed in it For by this means the snow that was contiguous to the sides was able but to cool the water and dispose it to Glaciation whereas the mingled snow and salt on which the bottom of the glass rested did actually turn the neighbouring Liquor into Ice and lift up the incumbent liquor toward the higher and empty parts of the glass And this liquor also I could afterwards freez at pleasure without danger of breaking the vessel only by so applying salt and snow to the sides of the glass that they never reached except perhaps at the very conclusion of the Experiment so high by a reasonable distance as the upper surface of the liquor in the glass so that the superior parts of that liquor were always kept fluid and capable of being easily impell'd higher and higher by the Expansion of the freezing parts of the subjacent liquor 8. The Speculative inference that may be drawn from this Experiment of making water begin to freez at the bottom not the top will be more properly taken notice of in another place In the mean time I shall only intimate by the way that there is no great necessity of any nice proportion of salt to snow nor of any exquisite mixture of them a third or fourth part or thereabouts of Sea salt in reference to the snow will not do amiss nor do I usually put salt to all the snow at once unless in some case wherein I have a mind to freez a liquor quickly and make a speedy resolution of the snow and salt in order thereunto to which I shall only add that by the way above mentioned I do upon particular occasions make the exposed liquor freez not at the bottom or the top but next to what side of the Glass I please according to the Exigency of the Experiment But though it may suffice to have hinted the Speculative Inference that may be drawn from this way of freezing Liquors it will be expedient to give explicitely this practical Advertisement concerning it that whereas it seems to have been taken for granted that snow is necessary in this Artifice and we our selves were for some time led away with the rest by that supposition yet that is but a presumption and ought to be removed as one very prejudicial to those that with us design the prosecuting Experiments in order to the History of Cold. For snow is but seldom to be found on the ground in comparison of Ice and being but a Congeries of many small Icesicles with much Air intercepted among them it is not 〈◊〉 paribus near so durable as the more intire Body of solid Ice and yet we have found by frequent Experience that Ice well beaten in a Mortar will serve our turn for Artificial Glaciations as well if not in some respects better as snow and therefore in this History of Cold we indifferently prescribe Snow and Salt or Salt and Ice as the Ingredients of our Glaciating Mixtures Title VI. Experiments and Observations touching the Preservation and Destruction of Eggs Apples and other Bodies by Cold. 1. IT is a Tradition common enough though not here in England yet among those that have given us Accounts of very cold 〈◊〉 that if Eggs or Apples being frozen be thawed near the fire they will be thereby spoiled but if they be immersed in cold water the internal cold will be drawn out as they suppose by the external and the frozen Bodies will be harmlefly though not so quickly thawed This Tradition I thought fit to examine not only because it may be doubted whether it will succeed in our more Temperate Climate and because I love not to relye upon Traditions when I have the opportunity to examine them especially if no one Credible Author affirms them upon his particular knowledge but also because I thought the Experiment if true might be so varied and made use of as to become luciferous enough and afford us divers Phaenomena of cold not so easie to be produced by the more known ways of experimenting And accordingly having exposed some of these Bodies to a cold that was judged sharp enough we afterwards put them in water but found not the event answer our expectations no Ice appearing to be generated nevertheless we were not hereby so discouraged as not to repeat the Experiment which we judged to be not unlikely with more sollicitousness and advantage then before and having thereby brought it to succeed we afterwards made several trials of it with several distinct aims but 〈◊〉 now find any Entry of divers of them But those I have hitherto met with among my Notes I shall subjoyn as having in them some Particulars that may afford useful hints to an Enquirer into the History and Nature of Cold. And I shall set down together and that in this place though it would not otherwise be the most proper those I have met with because some Circumstances of one or other of them may be of use to us on several occasions in the present Treatise 2. An Egg weighing twelve drachms and one grain wrapt in a wax'd paper to keep it from the liquor of the thawing snow and frozen with snow and salt wanted four grains of that weight put into a dish of fair water there crusted as much Ice about the outside as made the Egg and Ice fifteen drachms and nine grains the ice being taken off from the shell and the shell very well dried the Egg was found to weigh twelve drachms and twelve grains the Egg being broken was found almost quite thawed the Egg frozen swam in water being thawed it sunk 3. We took two Eggs strongly frozen and in a room where there was a good fire we put one of them into a deep woodden-dish full of very cold water and set the other by it upon a table about two yards from the fire that they might be in Air of the same temper as to heat and cold then perceiving the Egg that lay under water to have obtained a thick crust of Ice we took it out and having first freed it from the Ice broke it and found that some part of the white was not yet freed from a pretty store of little parcels of Ice but the rest of the white which was much the greater part and the Yelk seemed to be much what of the same consistence as if the Egg had not formerly been
particular Bodies and the differing degrees of Cold and the differing times wherein the Condition of the expos'd Body is estimated be taken into Consideration For we find that a moderate degree of Cold preserves many Bodies and that glaciation destroys or at least prejudices most others probably by discomposing or vitiating their Texture when they come to be thaw'd though whilest the Frost is in them it keep almost all Bodies from disclosing any putrefaction 17. This being the general Consideration I intended to propose it remains that I add out of credible Writers or other Relators some Observations to illustrate and confirm the chief particulars comprehended in it And first that a moderate degree of cold conduces much to the preservation of the greatest part of inanimate Bodies is a thing vulgarly taken notice of and acknowledg'd And I do not readily remember any instances that manifest that any degree of Cold though more then moderate provided it fall short of freezing the Bodies expos'd to it does spoil them Regii Mutinenses says the industrious Bartholinus nivem hoc fine arctè 〈◊〉 servant in Cellis Nivariis in quibus fervente aestate vidi carnes mactatorum Animalium à putredine diu se conservasse The next thing I shall mention to our present purpose is a memorable passage in Captain James's Voyage which shows that so great a Degree of Cold as may be suppos'd to have reign'd in his ship that was frozen up all the Winter in one of the Coldest Regions of the World was not great enough to spoil the meat and drink that had layen all that time under water because it seems by the story that they were not actually frozen the words of his Journal are these By the Ninth of May we were come to and got up our five Barrels of Beef and Pork and had four Buts of Beer and one of Cyder which God had preserved for us it had layen under water all the winter yet we could not perceive that it was any thing the worse which is the more remarkable because of what we shall note by and by both out of other Books and even out of this about what became of a stronger Liquor then Beer once brought to Glaciation And it seems our Navigator found Cold if extremely intended so destructive a thing that he thought fit to take notice in his Journal That even a Cable having layen under the ice all the Winter was not in June found a jote the worse 18. And it seems by a passage in Simlerus's account of the Alpes that even Intire Bodies may be very long preserved by snow and as far as I can guess by the story without glaciation Refert says Bartholinus speaking of him in Rhetis apud Rinwaldios nivium è monte ruentium 〈◊〉 sylvam 〈◊〉 Abietes dejecisse accidisse etiam Helvetio milite per Alpes iter faciente ut 60. homines plures eadem nivis conglobatione opprimerentur Hoc igitur Nivium tumulo sepulti ad 〈◊〉 Aestatis delitescunt quo solut â nonnihil Nive Deciduâ Corpora mortua inviolata patent si ab amicis vel transeuntibus quaerantur Vidimus ipsi triste hoc spectaculum c. 19. Secondly I could alledge many instances to show that many if not most inanimate Bodies I say inanimate because of the Gangraenes and Sphacelations that often rob living men of frozen Toes Noses and sometimes other parts if they be actually frozen will not disclose any putrefaction whilest they continue in that state Nor is this much to be wondred at since whether we will suppose that in Glaciation the moist and fluid parts are wedg'd in by intruding swarms of frigorifick Atomes or that those restless particles that were wont to keep the Body fluid or soft are called forth of it be the cause of glaciation which soever of these two ways we pitch upon we must in frozen Bodies conceive an unwonted rest to be produced of those movable particles whose internal commotions and disorderly coalitions and Avolations are either the Causes or the necessary Concomitants of Corruption 20. On this Occasion I remember that meeting with a knowing Man whose affairs stopp'd him during the Winter upon the Coasts of Sweden and Denmark being desirous to learn of him how long they could in those colder Climates preserve in Winter Dead Bodies unburied and yet uncorrupted he told me he had opportunity to observe that though the frost lasted as it usually did in that season three or four moneths together or longer the Bodies might without any Embalming or other Artificial way of preservation be kept untainted by the bare coldness of the Air. Of Bodies lasting long unputrified in ice Navigators and others have afforded us several instances but we will mention two because they contain something more remarkable then the rest The one is thus delivered by Bartholinus Notandum Corpor a occisorum hyeme eodem positu eademque figur â permanere rigidâ quâ ante eadem depraehensa sunt Visum id extra urbem nostram quum 11. Feb. 1659. oppugnantes hostes repellerentur magnaque strage occumberent alii enim rigidi iratum vultum ostendebant alii oculos elatos alii ore diducto ringentes alii Brachiis extensis gladium minari alii alio situ prostrati jacebant Imo ex mari gelato primo vere resoluto eques equo suo insidens integer emersit nescio quid manibus tenens The other instance is afforded us by Captain James's Journal and is by him thus delivered In the Evening of the 18. of May the Master of our ship after Burial returned aboard ship and looking about her discovered some part of our Gunner under the Gun-room ports This man we had committed to Sea at a good distance from the ship and in deep water near six moneths before The 19. in the morning I sent Men to dig him out he was fast in the Ice his head downwards and his heel upwards for he had but one Leg and the Plaister was as yet at his wound in the afternoon they digged him clear out after all which time he was as free from noisomness as when we first committed him to Sea This alteration had the Ice and water and time only wrought on him that his flesh would slip up and down upon his 〈◊〉 like a Glove on a mans hand But there is one pertinent particular more which if it be strictly true is so very remarkable that I cannot on this occasion forbear to annex it which is That according to the relation of the Merchants of Copenhagen that return thither from Spitzberg a place in Greenland the extreme Cold will there suffer nothing to putrifie and corrupt insomuch that Buried Bodies are preserved 30. years 〈◊〉 and inviolated by any 〈◊〉 21. Thirdly though whilest Bodies continue frozen the cold as may be supposed by arresting the insensible particles from whose tumultuary motions and disorderly Avolations Corruption is wont to
no pain save that when he came to himself again he felt such a pricking all his Body over as men are wont to find in an Arm or Leg benumm'd by having been long lean'd upon When I ask'd whether the sharpness of the Cold did not work upon the stones he answer'd That as to Flints he could not tell but as to other stones and such as are oftentimes us'd for Building the violence of the Cold made them frequently moulder into Dust. And to satisfie my Curiosity about the Effect of Cold upon Wood he told me that he had very often in the night especially when their keen frosts were unaccompani'd with Snow heard the Trees cleave and crack with very great and sometimes frightful noises and that the outside of the Fir-Trees that were laid upon one another in their Buildings and was expos'd to the Air would do the like and that he had often seen the gaping Clefts sometimes wide enough to put in his fingers which would remain in the Trees and in the Fir-wood till the thaw after which they would pretty well close of themselves Title VII Experiments touching the Expansion of Water and Aqueous Liquors by Freezing 1. THat water and other Liquors are condensed by Cold and so much the more condensed by how much the greater the degree of Cold is that condenses them has been for many ages generally taught by the Schools and taken for granted among men till of late some more speculative then the rest have called it in question upon the account of the levity of Ice since which I have met with two modern writers that have incidentally endeavoured to prove that Ice is water not condensed but rarified by the intumescence of water exposed to freezing in vessels fitly shap'd These Attempts of these learned Men putting me in mind of what I had tried to this purpose when I was scarce more then a Boy invited me to consider that by the usual ways of Glaciation such as these ingenious Men employ'd the Experiment is wont to meet with a Disaster by the breaking of the Glasses which not only makes the Event liable to some objections of theirs that befriend the common Opinion but which is more considerable hinders them from judging what this Expansion of water that is made by freezing may amount to wherefore we will now set down what we have done to ascertain and yet limit the Experiment as also to advance it further 2. Whereas then these two learned Men we have been mentioning do so expose the water to freez that it is turn'd into Ice at the top as soon as elsewhere the inconveniences of which way we have already noted we by freezing the water as we have formerly taught from the bottom upwards can easily preserve our Glasses entire and yet turn the whole contained water into Ice so that if according to this way You so place a Bolthead or a Glass-egg in whose Cavity the water ascends to the height of an inch or thereabouts within the stem or shank in a mixture of Ice or snow and salt as that the water is first turned into ice at the bottom and sides and not till the very last at the top you shall manifestly see that the ice will reach a good way higher in the neck then the fluid water did and that upon a gentle thaw of the ice the water it returns to will rest at the same height in the stem to which it reached before it was exposed to be frozen 3. We have likewise used other ways unspoken of by the lately mentioned writers to evince that water is expanded by being frozen as first that we took a strong earthen vessel of a Cylindrical form and filling it with water to a certain height we exposed it unstopped both to the open Air in frosty nights and to the operation of snow and salt and found that the ice did manifestly reach higher then the water did before it was congealed Besides if a hollow Pipe or Cylinder made of some compact matter be stopped at one end with wax or some things else which it may be more easie to drive out then to burst the Cylinder and if at the other end it be filled with water and that orifice also be stopped after the same manner this Pipe suspended in a sufficiently cold Air will have the included water frozen and by that change if the Experiment have been rightly made the water will upon congelation take up so much more room then it did before that the above mentioned stoppels or at least one of them will be thrust out and there will be produced a rod of Ice a good deal longer then the pipe at each of whose ends or at least at one of them a Cylindrical piece of Ice of a pretty length may be broken off without medling with the Pipe or the ice that fills it Divers other ways of proving the same Truth might be here alledged but that though these were not 〈◊〉 they are sufficient the matter would yet be abundantly confirm'd by divers of the Experiments that will here and there come in more opportunely in the following part of this Treatise 4. But here it will not be altogether impertinent or unseasonable to take notice that not only those School Philosophers who have considered the breaking of well 〈◊〉 Glasses in frosty weather an accident but too frequent in Apothecaries Shops and Laboratories but divers modern Virtuosi are wont to ascribe the Phaenomenon to this that the Cold of the external Air contracting the Air and Liquor within the Ambient Air must break the sides of the Glass to fill that space which being deserted upon the condensation of the included Air the liquor would otherwise leave a vacuum abhorr'd by nature and even those few Moderns that are loath to ascribe this Phaenomenon to Natures abhorrency of a vacuum either not being acquainted with the weight of the Air know not what probable account to give of it or if they acknowledge that weight are wont to ascribe it to that and to the great contraction of the internal Air made by the Cold of the External 5. But as for the Peripateticks the above mentioned Experiments sufficiently evince that in many cases 't is not the shrinking but the Expansion of the liquors contained in the stopt vessels that occasions their bursting and therefore in these cases we need not nor cannot fly to I know not what fuga vacui for an account of the Phaenomenon and whereas it may be objected that even glasses not half full of distill'd waters if they be exactly stopt are often broken by the frost in Apothecaries shops I answer That neither in this case do I see any need of having any recourse either to the fuga vacui or to the weight of the external Air for even here the Expansion of the freezing liquor may serve the turn for in such inartificial glaciations the liquor begins to freez at the top and the ice there
generated fastning itself as on other occasions we declare very strongly to the sides of the Glass contiguous to its edg as the liquor freezes deeper and deeper this crust of Ice increases in thickness and strength so that the water is included as in a vessel Hermetically sealed betwixt this Ice at the upper part and the sides and bottom of the Glass every where else and consequently the remaining water being uncapable of Congelation without Expansion when the ice is grown strong enough at the top to make it easier for the expansive endeavour of the freezing water to crack the sides or bottom of the Glass then to force up that thick cake of Ice the vessel will be broken how much soever there be of it empty above the surface of the Ice And this Conjecture may be confirmed by these two Particulars the one That when water is frozen in a broad vessel which is too strong to be broken or stretch'd by the frost the surface of the ice contiguous to the Air will be convex or protuberant because that though the glaciation began at the top the thickness and Compactness of the vessel makes it easier for the expansive endeavour to thrust up that cake of ice in those parts of it that are the remoter from the sides whereunto they are strongly fastned then to break so solid a vessel 6. The other Particular is afforded us by that Experiment of ours mention'd in the Vth Title foregoing wherein if a vessel half full of water be made to freez not first at the top but at the bottom that liquor may be turned into ice without danger to the glass But we will now add an Experiment on whose occasion we have set down these Considerations For being inclined to think that the spring of the Air shut up in a vessel stopped will preserve it expanded or at least keep it from considerably shrinking notwithstanding a very great degree of Cold in case the vessel be strong and close enough to fence it from the pressure of the external Air we conjectured that the bare weight of the outward Air added to the Refrigeration of the included Air would not be sufficient to break much weaker glasses then those we have been speaking of And therefore partly to satisfie some ingenious Men that this Conjecture made me dissent from and partly to show the Peripateticks and those that adhere to them in the question under consideration that either the Cold alone cannot always as they teach us contract the Air or that if it do the breaking of well stopp'd glasses in frosty weather is much fitter to evince that there may be a vacuum then that there can be none we made the following Experiment 7. We took three glass-bubbles of differing shapes and sizes which we caused to be blown with a Lamp that to make the Experiment very favourable for our Adversaries we might have them much thinner and consequently weaker then those glasses that are wont to be made use of to keep liquors in and which notwithstanding are wont to be broken though they be not full by the frost These Bubbles when the Air was at a convenient temper within were as easily they might be nimbly seal'd up with care to avoid the heating of the Air in them and being afterwards expos'd sometimes to the Air it self in very frosty weather and sometimes to that greater Cold which is produced by the placing them in a mixture of snow and salt we could not nevertheless find that any one of the three was at all broken or cracked so that in case the included Air were condensed into a lesser room the space it deserted may be concluded empty or else it will hardly appear what 〈◊〉 there can be that Nature should break as the Peripateticks pretend very much stronger glasses in Apothecaries shops to prevent a vacuum 8. Having shown that water it self acquires a considerable Expansion by Cold we will next shew that Aqueous Bodies or those that abound with waterish parts do divers if not 〈◊〉 of them the like We took Eggs and exposing them to a sufficient Degree of Cold we observ'd that when the contain'd liquors were turn'd into Ice they burst the shells asunder so that divers gaping Cracks were to be seen in them as long as they continu'd frozen 9. Milk Urine Rhenish-wine and good spirit of Wine being set to freez in distinct glass Eggs neither of the three former liquors 〈◊〉 observ'd to subside before it began to rise The Event in sum was that the Urine was much longer then either of the two other liquors before it began to swell but rose to a far greater height then they afterwards The Wine did not leave the mark above an inch beneath The Milk ascended about two inches and the Urine by guess six or seven 10. A strong solution of 〈◊〉 Vitriol being put into a Cylindrical Pipe seal'd at one end so that the liquor fill'd the Pipe to the height of about six or eight inches being frozen with snow and salt the congeal'd liquor grew very opacous and look'd as if it had been turn'd or shot into Vitriol save a little that remain'd fluid and transparent near the bottom And this Ice as appeared rose considerably higher then the liquor did before Congelation It were perhaps worth trying whether or no even several Bodies of a stable consistence and durable Texture might not be found to receive some though less manifest Dilatation by excessive Cold. And methinks those who attribute Glaciation to the plentiful Ingress of frigorifick Atoms into Bodies should by their Hypothesis have been invited to make some Trials of this kind since we see that the invisible Moisture of the Air against rainy weather does seem manifestly enough to alter the Dimensions of doors window-shuts and other such works made of wood not well season'd And even without supposing the truth of the Epicurean Hypothesis if we consider that in Bread though we are sure that much more water was added to the Meal or Flower then was exhal'd in the Oven yet there appears not the least drop of water distinct in the Concrete and that Harts-horn Sponges and many other Bodies that seem very dry will afford by distillation good store of phlegm or water and more then can probably be ascrib'd to any transmuting Operation of the Fire If I say we consider these and the like things it may seem worth while to try which I want the conveniency to do by accurate measures whether the invisible and interspers'd water its comminution notwithstanding will not upon freezing swell the Body that harbours it And I would the more gladly have been satisfi'd in this because I hop'd it might help me to unriddle a strange 〈◊〉 afforded us by the Narrative of the Dutchmens Voyage to Nova Zembla wherein they relate That the Cold was so great that their Clock was frozen and would not go though they hung more weight upon it then before So that they were
Claret-wine and if thrust down into either of these liquors they nimbly enough emerged 6. Whether or no Chymical oyls though like expressed oyls they shrink with a moderate degree of Cold would by congelation be like them contracted or like Aqueous liquors expanded we could not satisfie our selves by Experiment because we were unable to advance Cold to a degree capable of bringing such oyls to congelation only we had thoughts to make a trial with oyl of Aniseeds distilled with water in a Limbeck in regard that though it be a very subtile liquor and as Chymists call it an Essential oyl and though in the Summer time and at some other seasons if the weather be warm it will remain fluid yet in the Winter when the Air is cold it will if it be well drawn and genuine easily enough lose its fluidity and therefore we thought it might do well to pour some of it in moderate weather into a conveniently shap'd glass and then to freez it externally by the application of Ice and Salt that we might observe whether upon congelation it would shrink or be expanded And accordingly though we were not provided with any Quantity of this oyl yet in weather that was not sharp we did by the help of some Ice which we procur'd when the season made it a Rarity surround a glass pipe fill'd with fluid oyl of Aniseeds and found though the Pipe were but short yet the inclosed substance when it had lost its fluidity had considerably lost of the height which it reached to before 7. And because the Empyreumatical oyls that are driven out of Retorts by somewhat violent fires seem'd to be of a nature differing enough from those Essential oyls as Artists call them which are drawn in Limbecks by the help of water as well as fire And because we observ'd that some of the firmer oyls may be us'd in Physick in much larger Doses then 't is thought safe to give the latter in Conjecturing from hence that probably Empyreumatical oyls may be less hot and so less indispos'd to Congelation we thought fit to make trial no body else in probability having done it whether the Cold in our Climate could be brought to freez these oyls and whether it would expand or condense them wherefore exposing in conveniently shap'd vessels some good oyl of Guajacum that was diaphanous enough though very highly colour'd to the greatest Cold we could produce we attempted but in vain to deprive it of its fluidity All that we were able to effect being to make it very manifestly shrink Title IX Experiments in Consort Touching the Bubbles from which the Levity of Ice is supposed to proceed 1. SInce the first thing that made the Moderns suspect that water is expanded by freezing is the floating of Ice upon water it will not be 〈◊〉 for confirmation of that Argument to take some notice of the 〈◊〉 of Ice in respect of water This is best observed in great Quantities of Ice for whereas in small fragments or plates the Ice though it 〈◊〉 not to the bottom of the water will oftentimes sink so low in it as scarce to leave any part evidently extant above the surface of the water in vast quantities of Ice that extancy is sometimes so conspicuous that Navigators in their Voyages to Island Greenland and other frozen Regions complain of meeting with lumps or rather floating rocks of Ice as high as their main Masts And if we should meet with Cases wherein we might safely suppose the Ice to be as solid as entire pieces of Ice are wont to be with us and not to be made up of icy fragments cemented together with the interception of considerable Cavities filled with Air it would not be difficult for any that understands Hydrostaticks to give a pretty near guess at the height of the Extant part by the help of what we lately observ'd of the Measures of water's Expansion and by the knowledge of the immersed part which supposing that the Ice were of a prismatical figure and floated in an erected posture would in fresh water amount to about eight or nine times the length of the part of the Prisme superior to the surface of the water 2. But because perhaps the great disparity in the degrees of Cold whereby water is in this and in those gelid Climates turn'd into Ice may breed a difference in the expansion of the frozen water and because some other circumstances may be needful to be taken into consideration about the height of floating Ice above water and these will be more properly taken notice of under the following Title I shall only upon this head of the Levity of Ice subjoyn the ensuing transcript of one of our notes concerning That subject We found that pieces of Ice clear and free for ought the Eye could take notice of from bubbles would not be made to sink in spirit of Wine once distilled from Brandy and it floated likewise in strong spirit of Wine drawn from quick Lime but if the spirit of Wine were well warmed such Ice as I mentioned would sink in it though as it grew cold the same Ice would slowly ascend and sometimes remain for a while as if it were suspended without sensibly rising or falling But all this while the Ice thawed apace in the water whereinto it was dissolved did manifestly seem to run down like a stream through the lighter body of the spirit of Wine the Diversity of the Refractions making this easie to be taken notice of yet common water though heated as hot as I could indure to hold the glass in my hand would not let the fragments of the same parcel of Ice sink into it but in oyl of Turpentine and in thrice Rectifi'd spirit of Wine the Ice would sink like a stone 3. That the levity of Ice in respect of water proceeds from the bubbles that are produc'd in it and make the water when congeal'd take up more room then when fluid has scarce been doubted by any that has consider'd the Texture of Ice as well as taken notice of its levity But if this be the true and only reason we may conjecture that there must be great store of bubbles in Ice extremely minute and undiscern'd by the naked Eye For though in very many parcels of Ice the bubbles are as well conspicuous as numerous insomuch that they render the Ice whitish and opacous yet we have observed that other pieces would swim which yet were of an almost crystalline clearness And therefore we thought fit to look upon some clear pieces of Ice in a Microscope and we shall subjoyn the Event because that when we beheld some of this ice in one of our Microscopes which has been counted by several of the curious as good a Magnifier as perhaps any is in the world we could not discover such store of bubbles as it seemed there should appear upon the supposition that the adequate cause of the levity and expansion of frozen water is
the Bubbles wont to abound in Ice be filled with common Air and even this question though it seem but one comprizes two for to resolve it we must determine whether there be any true Air contained in those Cavities and whether in case there be they be adequately filled with that Air by true Air I mean such an invisible fluid as does permanently retain a spring like the common Air. 7. The former of these two Questions I must confess my self not yet resolved about my Experiments having not hitherto succeeded uniformly enough to satisfie so jealous an observer But yet I shall annex our trials not only because the thing has not been that we know of somuch as attempted by others and our ways of Experimenting if they be duly prosecuted seem as promising and hopeful if the Question be reducible to any certain Decision as perhaps will be easily lighted on but because also we have if we mistake not resolved the second Question by shewing that there is but a small part of true Air contained in the Bubbles of Ice whatever Ingenious men that rely upon probable Conjectures without consulting Experience have been pleas'd to believe to the contrary That the bubbles observed in Ice cannot all be filled with the Aerial particles lurking in the water seems evident enough by the expansion of the water and the Quantity of space taken up by those bubbles which how the interspers'd and formerly latitant Air can adequately fill unless the same parcel of Matter could truly 〈◊〉 much more space at one time then at another which I take to be physically impossible I do not yet apprehend But two ways of trial there are which we imployed to shew that the Icy bubbles are nothing near filled with true Air whether Men will have that pre-existent in the water or stollen in from without or generated anew the former of the two ways of trials probably arguing that these bubbles proceed not only for that they may proceed partly we do not at all deny from the Air pre-existent in the water and the latter concluding more generally that but a small part of the icy bubbles are filled with genuine Air. 8. And 1. we were invited to conjecture both that sometimes or in some cases the Air latitant in the water might contribute to generate icy bubbles though it was unable adequately to fill them and again that sometimes or in other cases such bubbles would be almost as numerously generated notwithstanding the recess of far the greatest part of that latitant Air by the three following Experiments taken verbatim out of our Collections I. We took fair water and having kept it in the exhausted Receiver of our Pneumatical Engine for a good while till we perceived it not to send up any more bubbles we presently transferred it into snow and salt where it was long enough before it began to freez and then we observed that the water did not swell near so much as common water is wont to do and the ice seemed to have few or no bubbles worth taking notice of but when I afterwards placed it between my Eye and the vigorous flame of a Candle I could perceive that it was not quite destitute of bubbles though they were extremely small in comparison of those that would probably have appeared in ordinary water Thus far the first Experiment the second follows which was made at another time II. The water that had been freed from the bubbles in the Receiver though it afforded an ice that seem'd to have smaller bubbles yet this ice being thaw'd part of the water was gently poured into a pipe of glass wherein being frozen it swell'd considerably enough above its first level and besides burst the glass being also very opacous by reason of the bubbles The third Experiment was more industriously prosecuted as may appear by this ample Narrative of it transcribed out of our Collections III. We took a small Egg with a pretty long neck and pouring in water till it reach'd an inch within the stem conveyed it into a long slender Cylindrical Receiver provided on purpose to make trials with such tall glasses the Air being by degrees drawn out of the bubbles appeared from time to time greater and greater and when the Receiver was well exhausted the water seemed to boil a longer time then one would have expected and sometimes the bubbles ascended so fast and great that we were in doubt whether the water did not boil over the top of the Pipe the exhausted Receiver was permitted to be so for a good while till the water had discharged it self in bubbles of its Air and then the glass-Egg was removed into a vessel furnished with ice and salt and there left ten or twelve hours that all the water save that in the neck might be throughly frozen and then we found it to have risen a great way above its first height and removing it into an Air temper'd like that wherein the first part of the Experiment was made having left it there in a quiet place for ten or twelve hours to thaw leisurely lest too warm an Air or too much stirring the glass might be an occasion of generating new bubbles in the exterior part of the ice near the glass we saw pretty store of bubbles but when that was thaw'd the rest of the ice appeared of a peculiar and unusual texture having no determinate bubbles that I could easily distinguish but seeming almost like a piece of frosted glass where the Parts that made the Asperity were exceeding thick set but this ice swam in the water whereinto the rest had been dissolved before it was all thawed when there yet remained a lump about the bigness of a small Walnut we reconveyed it into the Receiver to try whether upon the exuction of the Air the ice would be presently melted but the alteration produced was so small if any that we durst not ground any thing upon it The Receiver being exhausted there did at length appear some bubbles in the water but they were not numerous and a hundred of them seem'd not to amount to one of those larger ones the same water had yielded us the first time it was put in in the ice also some small bubbles disclosed themselves which we did not perceive there before wherefore we took out the Egg and found the ice being now thaw'd that the water was subsided to the mark we had made before it was expos'd to congelation if not some very little way beneath it Then we went about to find the Proportion wherein this dispirited water was expanded by glaciation but in pursuing this there hapned a mischance to the glass which kept the Experiment from being so accurate as we designed And therefore though it seemed to us that it amounted to about the twelfth part which is less then that of the undispirited water yet we designed the repetition of the Experiment Only in this we could not be mistaken that the
inverting the stem and breaking the Neb under water we found about ten inches of water to have been impell'd into the stem so that in this there seem'd no generation of Air. 17. To all these Experiments we shall subjoyn in two words that as in water so in some aqueous liquors we found that the icy Bubbles were not fill'd with Air though we did not think fit to take the pains to measure their respective Expansions by being congeal'd For in that elsewhere mention'd Experiment where we expos'd Milk Urine and Rhenish-wine to freez when all those liquors were risen above their former marks as is there related our Notes inform us that the Experiment was thus prosecuted 18. Being seal'd up the foregoing words mention'd the above-named expanded liquors and suffer'd to thaw the several liquors subsided to their first marks or thereabouts and the glasses being inverted and broken under water we were by an accident hindred from observing what we desir'd in that which had the Wine though when it was taken out of the freezing pot it had ice but not much swimming in it But into the glass that had the Milk the water was manifestly impell'd by the outward Air and so it was into the glass that had the Urine which being remov'd from the Bason and reinverted appear'd to have as much new liquor in its stem as amounted by guess to five or six inches 19. To which Experiment we may add that another time a seal'd glass of partly frozen Claret-wine being broken under water the water was impell'd up between half an inch and an inch above the mark beyond which it would not have ascended if the bubbles had been full of true and permanent Air. 20. If it be said that though I have delivered too many Particulars about so empty and slight a Theme as Bubbles I have this to answer that possibly all these Experiments have rather shew'd us what it is not that fills them then what it is so that more then all these Experiments appearing requisite to clear up the Difficulties about them I shall not think I have altogether mis-spent my time especially if so many past Experiments both new and not altogether impertinent by their not having taught us enough about so despicable a subject as a Bubble shall as they justly may teach us Humility Title X. Experiments about the Measure of the Expansion and the Contraction of Liquors by Cold. 1. TO the Experiments mention'd in the Seventh and Ninth Titles which shew that water has an Expansion it will be proper to subjoyn some of those whereby we endeavoured to measure that Expansion And here we shall not content our selves to say that whereas the Authors we had formerly occasion to point at take notice of their having raised water in a Bolthead half an inch or an inch by freezing we have made it ascend a foot and a half and more This I say we shall pass by because that though by such Experiments we have very clearly and undeniably manifested the Expansion of the water yet unless the Capacity of the vessel be known they will signifie but little towards the determining the Quantity of that Expansion which yet is the thing we are now enquiring after wherefore we shall add that we employ'd two differing ways to measure this Expansion 2. The one was by putting in by weight such a number of ounces of water into a Bolthead till the water was risen a pretty way in the long stem wherewith it was filled then marking on the outside to what height every freshly added ounce of water reach'd in the stem we afterwards poured out a convenient Quantity of the liquor yet leaving enough to fill the whole cavity of the spherical or obtuse end of the vessel and of the lower part of the stem then leisurely freezing this remaining water from the bottom upwards we observed that when it was frozen the ice that was made of 82. parts of water filled as one of our Notes inform us the space of 91. and if I mistake not the Character an eight so that by this troublesome way of Examination we found that the water by the Expansion it received from Cold was made to possess about a ninth part more space then it did before congelation 3. In another of our notes we find as follows 55 parts of water extended themselves by freezing into sixty and a half about six of those parts remaining unfrozen so that in this Experiment the waters Expansion was not much though somewhat differing from what it was in that last mention'd 4. The other way we made use of to measure the Dimensions that water gains by freezing was to take a Cylindrical pipe of glass seal'd at one end and left open at the other at which we fill'd it with water to a certain height that we took notice of by a mark appli'd to the outside and then keeping it in an erected posture and freezing it from the bottom upwards we found that it had acquir'd by a tenth part or thereabouts greater Dimensions in the form of ice then it possessed in the form of water But the nature of the particular parcel of liquor exposed to the Cold for it is not necessary that all waters should be equally dispos'd to be expanded by freezing and some other circumstances not now to be discoursed of may well beget some little variety in the success of this sort of trials For in one that we made carefully we found the Expansion somewhat greater then that last mentioned as may appear by the following Note which compar'd with what was lately delivered of the trials we made by weight of the water's Expansion may invite us to think that we cannot much err by estimating in general that the room that Ice takes up more then water amounts to about a ninth part of the space possessed by the same water before it was turned into Ice The note we were speaking of is this 5. In a more then ordinarily even Cylindrical glass we exposed some water to freez to measure its Intumescence and found that it expanded its self to about an eighth part or at least a ninth upon glaciation this we tri'd twice and thought that the Intumescence might have been more considerable but that in a Cylinder the freezing did not seem to succeed so well But here we must resolve a difficulty which though ordinary Readers may take no notice of yet may breed a scruple in the minds of those that are acquainted with Hydrostaticks For to such Readers this Account of ours may seem to be contrary to the Experience of Navigators into cold Climates who tell us as we shall have occasion to take notice in due place of vast pieces of Ice as high not only as the Poops of their Ships but as the Masts of them and yet the Depth of these stupendious pieces of Ice seems not at all Answerable to what it may be suppos'd to be in case we compare together the
a very frosty night to the cold Air and the next morning the water appeared to have burst the Bottle though its matter were metalline and though purposely for this trial we had chosen it quite new the crack appeared to be in the very substance of the Pewter This Experiment we repeated and 't was one of those bottles fill'd with Ice that had crack'd it which a Noble Virtuoso would needs make me who should else have scrupled to amuse with such a Triffle so great a Monarch and so great a Virtuoso bring to his Majesty to satisfie him by the wideness of the crack and the Protuberance of the Ice that shewed it self in it that the water had been really expanded by Congelation 3. We also tried whether or no a much smaller Quantity of water would not if frozen have the like Effect and accordingly filling with about an ounce of water a scru'd Pewter box such as many use to keep Treacle Salves in quite new and of a considerable thickness we found that upon the freezing of the included water the vessel was very much burst Afterwards filling a Quart Bottle if I mistake not the capacity with a congealable liquor and tying down the Cork very hard with strong Packthread we found that the frost made the liquor force out the stopple in spite of all the care we had taken to keep it down But afterwards we so well fastned a Cork to the neck of a quart bottle of Glass that it was easier for the congealing liquor to break the vessel then to thrust out the stopple and having for a great many hours expos'd this to an exceeding sharp Air we found at length the bottle burst although it were so thick and strong that we were invited to measure the breadth of the sides and found that the thinnest place where it was broken by the Ice was 3 16 of an inch and the thickest ⅜ that is twice as much 〈◊〉 we also by the help of the frost broke an earthen bottle of strong Flanders metal of which the thinnest part that was broken was equal by measure to the thinnest part of the other 4. But the above mention'd Instances serving only to declare in general that the Expansion of water by Cold is very forcible I thought fit to attempt the reducing of the Matter somewhat nearer an Estimate less remote from being determinate and because the water expos'd to congelation may be probably supposed to be Homogeneous we judg'd that the quantity of it may very much vary its degree of Force and because some may suspect that the Figure also may not be inconsiderable in this matter we thought fit to make our Trials in a Brass vessel whose Cavity was Cylindrical and which to make it stronger had an orifice but at one of its ends and whose thickness was such that we had reason to expect that whilest the top remained covered but with a reasonable weight the included water would find it more easie to lift up that weight then break the sides To this Cylinder we fitted a cover of the same mettal that was flat and went a little way into the Cavity leaning also upon the edges of the sides for the more closer stopping of the orifice the cavity of this Cylinder was in length about five inches and in breadth about an inch and three quarters This Cylinder being fill'd top full with water and the cover being carefully put on was fastned into an Iron frame that held it erected and allowed us to place an iron weight amounting to 56. pound or half a hundred of common English weight which circumstance I mention because the common hundred that our Carriers c. use exceeds five score by twelve But this vessel being exposed in a frosty night to the cold Air the contain'd water did not the next morning appear to be frozen and the trial was another time that way repeated with no better success as if either the thickness or clearness of the mettal had broken the violence of the external Airs frigefactive Power or the weight that oppressed the Cover had hindred that Expansion of the water which is wont to accompany its Glaciation Wherefore we thought it requisite to apply to the outside of the vessel a mixture of salt with ice or snow as that which we had observed to introduce a higher degree of Cold then the Air alone even in very frosty nights and though this way it self the glaciation proceeded very slowly and sometimes scarce at all yet at length we found that the water was by this means brought so far to freez that on the morrow the ice had on one side swelled above the top of the Cylinder and by lifting the cover on that side had thrown down the incumbent weight but in this trial the cover having been uniformly or every where lifted up above the upper orifice of the Cylinder we repeated the Experiment divers times as we could get opportunity sometimes with success and sometimes without it and of one of the chief of our Experiments of this sort we find the following account among our Collections 5. The hollow brass weight being about one inch and thee quarters in Diameter and the brass cover put on was loaded with a weight of 56. pound upon the cover and expos'd to an excessively sharp night the next morning the cover and the weight were found visibly lifted up though not above that we could discern a small Barley-corns breadth but the thickness of the brass cover was not here estimated which was much less then half an inch which according to former observations one might exspect to see the ice ascend But that which we took particular notice of was that the inclosed Cylinder of ice being by a gentle thaw of the superficial parts taken out appear'd so full of bubbles as to be thereby made opacous Also when in the morning the Cylinder was brought into my Chamber before the fire was made the 56. pound weight being newly taken off at a little hole that seemed to be between the edge of the Brass and Ice there came out a great many drops of water dilated into numerous bubbles and reduced into a kind of sroth as if upon the removal of the oppressing weight the bubbles of the water had got liberty to expand themselves but this lasted but a very little 6. After this the difficulty we have often met with in the placing of great weights conveniently upon the cover of a Cylinder and the Expectation we had to find the Quantity of the water we made use of capable upon its Congelation to lift up a much greater weight invited us to make trial of its Expansive force by some what a differing way which was to fit a wooden plug to the Cavity of the Cylinder after we had suffered it to soak a convenient time in water that swelling as much as it would before it might be made to swell no more by the water which would lye contiguous
Air to be condens'd at the time of the sealing was accounting by Estimation for the slender pipe newly taken notice of almost 9 â…ž inches This space we observed the ascending water as the ice increas'd below to invade by degrees for we watch'd it and measur'd it from time to time so much till at length the water reach'd to 8. inches and â…ž almost above the station which we had carefully mark'd with a Diamond in which we found it when the glass was seal'd up leaving but about an inch of Air at the top so that of the whole space before possess'd by the Air the water had intruded into near nine parts of ten then being partly apprehensive the glass would hold no longer but have its upper part blown off as it happened to us a little before with another vessel and partly being desirous to try that which follows we leisurely inverted the glass that the Air might get up to the ice for all the water in the stem had been purposely kept unfrozen and having provided a Jar to receive the water that should be thrown out we broke the slender pipe which we had seal'd up and immediately as we expected the compressed Air with violence and noise blew out of the stem into the Jar about ten inches of water which was somewhat more between half an inch and a whole inch by reason of the Impetus of the self expanding Air then the space possess'd by the Air before it began to be compress'd And besides this such a strange multitude of Bubbles that were formerly repress'd did now get liberty to ascend from the lower parts of the glass to the top of the remaining water that it somewhat emulated that which happens to botled Beer upon the taking out of the Cork N. B. when the Air was compressed beyond seven inches we observ'd divers times that the inside of the glass possess'd by the Air and nearest to the water was round about to a pretty height full of very little drops like a small dew but when we came to break the glass we took noe such notice whether the rising water had lick'd them up or their concourse made them run down into it or for some other reason we determine not Another 5. We took a single vial filled with water about half an inch above the lower part of the neck and leaving about two inches of Air in the remaining part of the neck which was drawn out into a slender pipe like that of the glass last mentioned we seal'd it up the Air being first well cool'd and exposing it to freez we observ'd a while after that it had by guess condens'd the Air into lesser room A while after being in another Chamber we heard a considerable noise and imagining what it was we went directly to the glass whose upper part consisting of about an inch of the neck besides the slender pipe we found had been blown off from the table upon the ground the body and part of the neck remaining in the snow but this glass was of a mettal that uses to be more brittle then white glass Another 6. A round white glass almost fill'd with water was seal'd up with care to avoid heating the included Air which amounted to a Cylinder of about two inches and â…ž after a while the water swell'd and compressed the Air almost two inches that is full two thirds and then as we conjectur'd because the snow reaching too high froze it in the neck we found the glass crack'd in many places of the Ball and the top thrown off at some little distance from it Another 7. A large single vial seal'd in whose neck the Air was not condens'd to half its former room just as we were going to break it under water to observe the sally of the compress'd Air suddenly blew off with a good noise and threw from the table almost the whole neck of the Vial in one intire piece which is near four inches long and at the Basis above an inch broad 8. A glass about the bigness of a Turkey Egg and of an oval form with a Neck almost Cylindrical but somewhat wider at the lower then the upper part was fill'd with water till there was left in the neck four inches and a half whereof the last quarter of an inch and a little more was much narrower then the rest being drawn into a conical shape that it might be easily seal'd at the Apex along this Cylinder from the surface of the water to the top of the glass was pasted a list of Paper divided into inches and quarters and then the glass being carefully and expeditiously seal'd up by the flame of a candle we observ'd that by holding the glass a while in a warm hand and a room where there was a good fire the water was swell'd up near a quarter of an inch but placing the glass amongst solid pieces of ice mixt with salt the water quickly began to subside upon the Infrigidation and a while after beginning to freez it began to swell and by degrees compress'd the Air till it had crowded it into less then a 17. part by what seem'd indisputable for by estimate it seem'd to some to be crowded into less then a 20. part is not a much lesser part of the room it formerly possess'd which difference of Estimates notwithstanding the divided Paper proceeded from the change of the figure of the upper end of the glass from the Cylindrical and to shew that there was no leak at the place where the glass was seal'd besides that by prying diligently we could discern none besides this I say when the pressure of the thus crowded Air grew too strong for the resistence of the glass it burst with a noise that made us come to it from several places of the house the vessel broke not in the Cylindrical part as I may so speak but in the oval the whole pipe with the seal'd end remaining entire the ice appear'd full enough of Bubbles which made it white and opacous and the water that had ascended into the neck upon the breaking was all driven out of it Thus far our Collections but because we had in another glass where the operation was sooner dispatch'd an opportunity of watching observing somewhat more exactly we will add 9. That the last and possibly the best Experiment we had of compressing Air by freezing was made in a short and strong glass Egg whose ball was very great in proportion to the stem that the expanding of the water might have the more forcible operation This vessel being exactly seal'd and having a divided list of paper pasted along the stem was set to freez with snow or ice and salt and the contain'd water did quickly begin to crowd the Air into a lesser room and for a good while ascended very fast till at length it having thrust the Air into so small a part of the Cavity of the pipe that we vehemently suspected there might
common salt but the Experiment succeeded not well though once we brought the ice to stick to the wood manifestly but not strongly 8. To this we shall add the following Experiment which when we watchfully made it succeeded well and I find it among my notes set down in these terms Solid fragments of ice having pretty store of salt thrown on them upon the first falling of the salt among the ice there was produced a little 〈◊〉 noise and for a good while after there manifestly ascended out of several parts of the mixture conveniently held betwixt a candle and the eye a steam or smoak like that of warm meat though the night were rainy and warm and though the morning had not been frosty The mention here made of the crackling noise made by the ice upon the addition of salt which seemed to proceed from the crackling of the brittle ice produc'd by the operation of the salt upon it brings into my mind an Experiment I had formerly made whereof a greater noise of the same kind is a Phaenomenon though the Experiment were chiefly made for the Discovery of the texture of Ice The event of the trial I find thus set down among my notes 9. We took some cakes of ice each of the thickness between an 〈◊〉 and a ¼ part of an inch but not so very compact ice as to be free from store of bubbles some good Aqua fortis dropp'd upon this did quickly penetrate it with a noise that seem'd to be the cracking of the ice underneath which the sowre liquor was very plainly to be tasted Oyl of Vitriol did the same but much more powerfully and without seeming to crack the ice which it past through so that though but three or four drops were let fall upon the plate it immediately shew'd it self in drops exceedingly corrosive on the other side of the ice And the like success we had with a trial made with the same liquor upon three such plates of ice frozen one upon the top of another 10. Having proceeded as far as we were able towards the bringing the strength of ice to some kind of Estimate by such Experiments as we had opportunity to make here we thought it not amiss to seek what information we could get about this matter among the Descriptions that are given us of Cold Regions But I have not yet found any thing to have been taken notice of to this purpose worth transcribing except a passage in the Arch-Bishop of upsal wherein though the estimate of the force of Ice be as we shall by and by show 〈◊〉 after a gross manner yet since this it self is more then I have met with elsewhere I think it worth subjoyning as our Author delivers it in these terms Glacies says he primae mediae hyemis adeò fortis tenax est ut spissitudine seu densitate duorum digitorum sufferat hominem Ambulantem trium vero digitorum equestrem Armatum unius palmae dimidiae turmas vel exercitus militares trium vel quatuor palmarum integram Legionem seu myriadem populorum quemadmodum inferiùs de bellis Hyemalibus memorandum erit But though this be sufficient to afford us an illustrious Testimony of the wonderful strong cohesion of the parts of ice yet we mention'd it but as a popular way of estimate which may better embolden Travellers then satisfie Philosophers in regard that the Author determines only the thickness of the ice and not the distance of that part of it that supports the weight from the shore or brink on which as on a Hypomochlion the remotest part of the ice does lean or rest And if we consider the ice as a Lever and the Brink or Brinks on which it is supported as a single or double sulcrum the distance of the weight may be of very great moment in reference to its pressure or gravitation on the ice which may much more easily support the weight of divers men plac'd very near the prop then that of one man plac'd at a great distance from it as will be easily granted by those that are not strangers to the Mechanicks especially to the nature and properties of the several kinds of Levers But not now to debate whether in certain cases the ice we speak of may not receive some support from the subjacent water nor whether some other circumstances may not sometimes be able to alter the case a little our very considering the ice as a single or double Lever though it may hinder us from measuring the determinate strength of ice upon Olaus's Observation yet it will set forth the strength of it so much the more since by his indefinite expressions he seems sufficiently to intimate that when the ice has attain'd such a thickness its resistance is equivalent to such a weight without examining on what part of the ice it chances to be placed 11. Thus far our Experiments concerning ice with the Appendix subjoyned out of Olaus to the same purpose We will now proceed to some of the observations we have met with in Seamens Journals and elsewhere I say to some because to enumerate them all would spend more time and labour then I can afford and therefore I shall restrain my self to the mention of some few of the chiefest I. And in the first place for confirmation of what I deliver'd at the beginning of this Section from the report of a Traveller into Russia touching the hardness of ice in those gelid Climates in comparison of our ice which I have found it easie to scrape with glass or to cut with a knife I shall subjoyn this passage of Captain G. Weymouth in his Voyage for the Discovery of the Northwest passage As we were says he breaking off some of this Ice which was very painful for us to do for it was almost as hard as a rock c. II. Next to shew that it was not a superfluous wariness that made me in a former Section doubt that even the ice made of Sea-water might be altogether or almost insipid I will subjoyn that I have since met with some Relations that seem to justifie what is there deliver'd And in one of our Englishmens Voyages into the Northern Seas I find more then one instance to my present purpose though I shall here set down but one which is so full and express that it needs no companions Our Navigator speaking thus About nine of the Clock in the forenoon we came by a great Island of Ice and by this Island we found some pieces of Ice broken off from the said Island and being in great want of fresh water we hoysed out our Boats of both Ships and loaded them twice with Ice which made us very good fresh water But all this notwithstanding I yet retain some scruple till those that have better opportunity to make a more satisfactory Experiment shall ease me of it For though by these Narratives it seems more then probable that the ice
of five Canons But the next passage is more directly pertinent to our present subject and is couch'd in these words About twelve of the clock this night it being still calm we found our selves suddenly compassed round about with great Islands of ice which made such a hideous noise as was most wonderful so that by no means we could double the same to the westward wherefore c. Of these kind of icy thunders as some travellers call them there are divers instances to be met with mention'd in the several Voyages of the Hollanders particularly in those to Nova Zembla But many of those noises seem to be made by the dashing of the great pieces of ice against one another But if it happen when the ice as sometimes it is said to do seems to cleave as it were of its own accord to us that live in a temperate Climate it may be a matter of some dispute whence these loud ruptures of ice may proceed For Olaus Magnus in the Chapter above cited does not improbably ascribe them to the warm exhalations that in some places ascend out of the ground And I remember in favour of this opinion that I once caused divers pieces of thick ice to be brought out of a cool place into a somewhat warm room and listening observ'd a noise to come from them as if it had been produced by store of little cracks made in them but somewhat or other prevented me from repeating the Experiment and satisfying my self about the Conjecture But having lately inquired of an intelligent Polander that has travelled much upon these icy plains he agreed with our Author and others as to the frightful noise that are produc'd by these cracks of ice but affirm'd upon his own observation for that I particularly inquired after that these great clefts were often made not by thawing heat but by excessive cold and that he had taken notice of them in extremely sharp weather Indeed we sometimes observe that in very bitter frosts the frozen ground will cleave as we elsewhere have occasion to take notice But whether that be not a different case from this or whether the Polonian Gentleman were not mistaken or whether both these mention'd accounts of the cleaving of ice may on different conjunctures of circumstances take place we leave to farther inquiry There is a tradition concerning ice about the famous Volcan-Hecla in Island which though verily believ'd among the superstitious vulgar of those parts is spoken of so slightly by Blefkenius who being upon that coast had the curiosity to sail purposely thither that I think it not worth while to take any farther notice of it But 't were too tedious to set down in this Section which the strangeness and variety of the Theme has made so prolix already the other things that may be mentioned without impertinency concerning ice and therefore we shall here desist from so laborious a task as also omit the handling of snow and hail For though they are reducible to ice yet I shall at least suspend the treating of them partly because Bartholinus and Meteorologists have sav'd much of my labour and partly for the reason newly intimated so that we shall conclude this Section as soon as we have taken notice that there is yet somewhat relating to ice which being in itself considerable and whereof hitherto no experimental account appears to have been given what we our selves have tried about it may challenge to be treated of apart Title XVI Experiments and Observations touching the duration of Ice and Snow and the destroying of them by the Air and several Liquors 1. IT may be an Experiment as well instructive as new to determine what liquor dissolves ice sooner then others and in what proportion of quickness the solutions in the several liquors are made For Men have hitherto contented themselves to suspect in general that there are other liquors potentially hot wherein ice will sooner dissolve then it will in water But this opinion either being grounded upon no Experience at all or taken up upon the sight of what happens to pieces of ice which no care was taken 〈◊〉 reduce to the same bulk and figure no more then to measure attentively how long one outlasted the other we thought fit to try if we could not bring this matter to Experiment and make a determination in it though not exactly true yet less remote from exactness then had been yet for ought I know so much as attempted 2. In order to this we procured some bullet moulds and having first carefully stopped the little Crevice that is wont to remain betwixt the two halfs of the mould with a good close Cement we afterwards filled them with water and carefully closed up the orifice of the hole at which the water was poured in and then setting the mould to freez in ice and salt we found it difficult enough to keep the water more or less of it from running away through some unperceiv'd passage before the cold could have time by congealing it to arrest it But after a while when we had thus made a bullet of ice we found it a new and greater difficulty to get it whole out of the moulds without warming them for by that way we could indeed loosen the ice but then we could not avoid thawing it too and that most times not uniformly wherefore we tried by greasing the inside of the moulds to keep the ice from sticking so close to them notwithstanding the distention the water suffered by its being frozen but that we might pick out the bullet entire and this succeeding well enough we hoped by this way to obtain our end which was to have a competent number of pieces of ice of equal bulk and of the same figure to be put at once to thaw in several liquors but we could by no means procure moulds which had any number of distinct cells of the same bigness those long pairs of moulds that were to be met with in shops having their distinct cells generally made on purpose of very different bignesses which rendred them altogether useless for our design Wherefore we were fain for want of an exacter way to take a glass pipe of the most even and Cylindrical that we had and of a bore capable to admit a big mans little finger this glass being stopt at one end and kept open at the other was filled to the height of about half a foot or more of fair water and ice and salt being heaped up about it that the cold might reach as far as the 〈◊〉 did it was quickly frozen In the mean while I had caused several wide mouth'd glasses to be brought into my Chamber wherein by reason of some indisposition that hindred me from going abroad I kept some fire and having poured several liquors into these glasses which had been placed all on a row we suffered them to rest there a while that the ambient Air might have time to reduce them as far
as it could to its temper and consequently to the same temper as to heat and cold and then with the warmth of ones hand the included ice being loosened from the glass as it was taken out and a ruler divided into inches and eights being laid alongst it with a knife a little warmed the ice was soon and yet not carelesly divided into several small Cylinders of three quarters of an inch a piece and these Cylinders thus reduced to as sensible an equality as we could were nimbly and carefully put into the several liquors hereafter to be mentioned and whilest we our selves watched very attentively till each of these icy Cylinders was quite and yet but just dissolved we caused others to keep time by the help of a Pendulum whose Vibrations were each a second minute or 60. part of a Common Minute whereof 60. go to make an hour and it was easie for those we appointed to watch the Vibrations of the Pendulum notwithstanding the Quickness of its Motion because it was fitted to a little Instrument purposely contrived for such nice observations wherein a long Index moving upon a divided Dyal plate did very manifestly point out the number of the Diadromes made by the Pendulum 3. This Experiment was afterwards repeated twice with Cylinders of ice each of them an inch long and though the successes of these trials were various enough yet we shall subjoyn both the last as being made with more advantage then the first that the more light may be gathered from them and that at least we may discover how difficult it is to make such Experiments in this matter as that all the nice circumstances of them may safely be relied on I. Trial. 1. Oyl of Vitriol where a Cylinder of Ice of an iuch long being put into lasted 5. minutes 2. Spirit of Wine in which the ice sunk lasted 12. minutes 3. Aqua fortis lasted 12 ½ minutes 4. Water lasted about 12. minutes 5. Oyl of Turpentine lasted not good 44. minutes 6. Air lasted 64. minutes II. Trial. 1. In Oyl of Vitriol where an inch of Cylindrical ice lasted 3. minutes 2. In Spirit of Wine lasted 13. minutes 3. In Water lasted 26. minutes 4. In Oyl of Turpentine lasted 47. minutes 5. In Sallet Oyl lasted 52. minutes 6. In the Air lasted 152. minutes 4. We likewise thought it worth trying whether there would be any difference and how much difference there would be in the Duration of pieces of ice of the same bulk and figure some of them made of common water and others of frozen Wine Milk Oyl Urine and other spirituous liquors these several pieces being exposed to be thaw'd in the same Air or other ambient liquor 5. We also tried whether Motion would impart a heat to ice by nimbly rubbing a strong piece of ice upon a plate of ice and though this seemed to hasten the dissolution in that part of the icy plate where the Altrition had been made yet we were unwilling to determine the matter till further and exacter trial have been made 6. And this brings into my mind an Experiment that has by some been thought very strange The occasion I remember was that I received the last Winter the honour of a visit from a Nobleman of great eminency and learning who chancing to come in while I was making some trials with ice would needs know what I was doing with it but the presence of a very fair Lady in whom Hymen had made him happy and of some other Company of that Sex that he brought along with him inviting me to give him the answer that I thought would be most suited and acceptable to his Company I merrily told him that I was trying how to heat a Cold liquor with ice and to satisfie him that was no impossibility I held out an open mouth'd glass full of a certain liquor which for some just reasons I do not describe but do plainly teach it in an opportuner place and desired them to feel whether it were not actually Cold and when they were satisfied it was so I chose among the pieces ofice that lay by me that I judg'd by the eye to be fit for my purpose for every piece was not so for a reason I elsewhere shew and throwing it into this liquor it did not only in a trice vanish in it but the Lady I was mentioning seeing the liquor smoak and advancing hastily to try whether it were really warm found it so hot that she was quickly fain to let it alone and had almost burnt her tender hand with which she had in spight of my 〈◊〉 wasion taken hold of the glass which Her Lord himself could 〈◊〉 indure to hold in his But this Experiment which for the main I have repeated before competent witnesses though it be not impertinent to the History of Cold yet I shall not build much upon it because how strange soever many have been pleased to think it I shall elsewhere shew that I made use of a certain unperceivable slight which in my opinion did as well as the nature of the liquor and the texture of the ice contribute to the suddenness and surprizingness of the Effect 7. But to return to the duration of the effects of Cold I think those much mistaken who imagine that the effects of Cold do continually depend upon the actual presence and influence of the manifest efficients as the light of the Air depends upon the Sun or Fire or other luminous body upon whose removal it immediately ceases For when cold agents have actually brought a disposed subject to a state of congelation though the manifest efficient cause cease from acting or perhaps from being the effect may yet continue For in most cases if a certain texture be once produced in a body it is agreeable to the constancy of nature that it persevere in that state till it be forceably put out of it by some agent capable to overpower it and though we usually see ice and snow as it were of their own accord to melt away when the frosty constitution of the Air ceases yet the cause of that may be not barely the cessation of frosty weather but that those easily dissoluble bodies are exposed to the free Air which being heated by the Sun beams and perhaps by calorifick expirations from the earth is furnisht with an actual cause upon whose account it destroys the texture of the ice and snow but even here above ground if snow be well compacted into great masses in which by reason of the closeness of the little icickles but little Air is allowed to get between them I have seen such masses of snow last so long not only in thawing but in rainy weather as to be wondered at and if such snow or ice be kept in a place where it may be fenced from the Sun and other external enimies though the place it is lodged in be not any thing near cold enough to produce ice yet it will as some trial
little Exercise would put them into a great sweat and a learned and experienced French Doctor that hath written in his own Language of Stones and Jewels affirms that in such Mines the Subterraneal Vapors and Exhalations are visibly so abundant and likewise so hot that the Mine-men are constrain'd which a person I spoke with affirmed to me touching himself to work in their shirts by reason of the great heat they there felt and though I would have been glad to know whether those deep places would have appear'd as hot when judg'd of by a seal'd Weather-glass as they did to the Mine-mens Sensories because of some little doubt I harbour'd whether much of that copious sweating and seeming heat might not proceed from the thickness of the dampish Air and its unfitness for Respiration yet because a Virtuoso that had a Lead-Mine of his own in which he wrought himself for curiosity answered me that he was not wont to find any difficulty of breathing in the place where he was so apt to sweat and since I find not that others have complain'd of having their respiration incommodated in such places unless by Accidental Damps my scruple was much abated and the rather because the Author lately mention'd expresly affirms that the Sudorifick heat if I may so speak is to be found in the Bowels of the Earth as well in Summer 〈◊〉 in Winter which prevents the ascribing of it to Antiperistasis And in other places then Mines 't is generally observ'd that Wells and Springs freez not if the place whence the water is drawn be very deep but as we have observ'd elsewhere that it oft comes up smoaking and as it were reaking which argues that at the least the Earth wherein it was harbour'd or through which it pass'd was if not warm free from such a degree of Cold as might be exspected in the Earth if it were the primum frigidum Nor can it be reasonably pretended that the Subterraneal heat comes from the Beams of the Sun since learned Men have observed that those heat not the Earth above six or seven foot deep even in Southern Countries and though we should allow them to pierce three times as far yet that would not be considerable to the depth of the Mines above mentioned and if the lower part of the Earth were of its own nature cold and received the heat it discloses only from the Sun and Stars the deeper men dig the lesser of heat and steams they would meet with whereas the above cited French Minerallist affirms that the lower they go the more vapours exhalations and heat they find 9. But because this learned man delivers this circumstance in a dogmatical rather then an historical way I will add somewhat out of a relation whence I have elsewhere taken other particulars made by a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 likewise that had 〈◊〉 curiosity to descend himself into the deep Mines of Hungary some of which that he went down into may be collected by his Narrative to have three or four 〈◊〉 fathom that is eighteen or twenty four hundred foot of perpendicular depth This Author then relates that after he had descended about 180. or a hundred fathoms he came into a very warm Region of the Earth which lasted to the bottom of the Mine and is so 〈◊〉 both Winter and Summer that the Laborors are wont to work in it without their clothes and he was scarce able to indure the heat of it although the external Air were very hot the weather being very fair and the moneth July He adds that he having demanded of the Overseer of the Mine whence this heat came he was answer'd to that and several other questions That it came from the lower parts of the earth that in all deep Mines after one is past the Colder crust of the earth one comes into a region that is perpetually warm and that where ever they dig the ground after they are come to such a depth which he elsewhere mentions to be about 80. or a hundred fathom they feel no more any cold but a perpetual heat how deep soever they dig yet without observing that after they are once into that warm region they find the heat sensibly increase the nearer they approach to the centre of the earth unless by accident they happen to dig through vains of hotter Minerals And these answers subjoyns my Author I received not in one Mine alone or from a single overseer but in all the Mines and from all the Masters of them so that if these were not mistaken we may safely conclude that as far as experience can inform us the body of the earth in its lowermost parts where 't is presum'd to be coldest is every where and that considerably hot I said if these Mine-men were not mistaken because having been in the bottom of some Mines my self though I find it acknowledged that 't is still warm in the bottom of deep ones yet I confess I somewhat suspect by what I have observ'd that this degree of heat which our French Physician found in the Hungarian Mines might be rather in great part from the peculiar nature of those places or of the Minerals generated there then barely as he and those that inform'd him suppose from the greatness of their depth beneath the surface of the earth for I know several mixtures besides those that are common of bodies neither of them actually hot which will produce a considerable degree of heat And very credible eye witnesses affirm that in some parts of England they dig up good store of a kind of Mineral which is thought to be of a Vitriolate nature which by the bare addition of common water will grow hot almost to ignition So that the Hungarian Mines being deep and as appears by our Authors Narrative being not 〈◊〉 of water enough to make a Subterraneal Spring in the Mine its self besides what water may plentifully ascend in the forms of vapours and moisten the Oar it may be suspected that either the water or some appropriated Mineral spirit or juice of which the bowels of the earth may contain divers that we know nothing of may produce together with the Mineral a warm steam which for want of sufficient vent in those narrow and close places may heat them considerably which conjecture may be countenanced by these three circumstances that I took notice of in our Authors Narrative one That the smoak that copiously ascended out of the Mine by the perpendicular grove was not barely hot but consisted of stinking exhalations which were so saline and fretting as oftentimes to corrode and spoil both the woodden ladders or stairs and the iron instruments of the diggers The other that the overseers themselves of the Mines told Morinus as we lately saw that they in some places met with veins of hot Minerals which made it hotter then the bare vicinity of those places to the centre of the earth would have done And lastly
with him supplied him so well with Air that he was not incommodated in point of Respiration and though he felt no other inconveniencies that might disswade his tarrying longer yet the cold was so great and troublesome that he was not able to endure it above two or three hours but was constrain'd to remount to a milder as well as a higher Region I wish'd several times he had had with him a seal'd Weather-glass for ordinary Thermometers would on that occasion have been unserviceable to prevent some little doubt that might be made whether the intense Cold he felt might not be only and chiefly in reference to his Body which might be so alter'd and dispos'd by this new Briny Ambient as to make such a disturbance in the course or texture of his Blood as that which makes Aguish persons so cold at the beginning of the fit though the temperature of the Ambient Body continue the same But this is not the only person that found the Sea Exceeding cold for I remember Beguinus relates from the mouth of a Marseillian Knight that was overseer of the Coral-fishing in the Kingdom of Tunis that having upon that coast let down a young man to feel whether Coral were hard or soft as it grew in the water when this man was come about eight fathom near the Bottom of the Sea he felt it exceeding cold To which we shall add the testimony of a sober Traveller Josephus Acosta who tells us That it is a thing remarkable that in the depth of the Ocean the water cannot be made hot by the violence of the Sun as in Rivers Finally he subjoyns even as Salt-Petre though it be of the nature of Salt hath the property to cool water even so we see by experience that in some parts and havens the salt water doth refresh the which we have observed in that of Callao where they put the water or wine which they drink into the Sea in Flaggons to be refreshed whereby we may undoubtedly find that the Ocean hath this property to temper and moderate the excessive heat For this cause we feel greater heat at Land then at Sea caeteris paribus and commonly Countries lying near the Sea are cooler then those that are farther off By all these testimonies it seems to appear that both in very cold Regions and very hot the deep parts of the Sea seem to be very Cold the Sun beams being not able to penetrate the Sea to any great depth for I remember that having enquired of the Diver I lately mentioned whether he could discern the light of the Sun at any great distance from the surface of the water he answered me that he could not but as he went down deeper and deeper so he found it darker and darker and that to a degree that would scarce have been expected in so Diaphanous a Body as water is 17. But this submarine cold if I may so call it though it be great and considerable is not so intense as to intitle water to be the primum frigidum since as cold as our Divers found it at the bottom of the Sea they did not find it cold enough to freez the water there as the Air often does at the Top. 18. The next Opinion we are to consider is that of the Stoicks of old and adopted by the generality of Modern Philosophers that are not Peripateticks who assert the Air to be the primum frigidum But being ere long more particularly to treat of the Temperature of the Air we will reserve till then to examine whether it be cold of its own nature or not but in the mean time we shall here take leave to question whether it ought to be esteem'd the primum frigidum For not to mention that Aristotle and the Schools with many other learned men think the Air so far from being the coldest of the Elements that they reckon it among the hot ones because I confels their opinion is not mine not to represent the heat of the Air in the Torrid Zone nor that by the generality of Philosophers the upper Region of the Air which is believed to make incomparably the greatest part of it is always hot and the lower Region is so too in comparison of the middle though the coldness even of this is not perhaps unquestionable not to urge any of these things I say I shall in this place mention only two observations 19. The one is that which I lately recited touching the great coldness of the water in the deeper parts of the Sea for'tis not easie to show how this great cold proceeds from that of the Air whose operation seems not as may be judg'd by that little way that frosts pierce into the moist Earth to reach very far beneath the surface of the water insomuch that Captain James who had very good opportunity to try allows not in case the Ice be not made by accumulation that the Frost pierces above two yards perpendicularly downwards from the surface of the water even in the coldest habitable Regions And this will seem the more rational if we consider that in case the coldness of the Sea proceeded constantly from the Air as such the cold would be greater near the surface where 't is contiguous to the Air then in the parts remoter from it and yet the contrary may appear by the passages lately recited 20. But if it be objected that this at best can prove no more then that the Air is not the primum frigidum notwithstanding which it may be the summum frigidum For answer I must proceed to my second Argument which will perhaps evince that it is not that neither for by the same way of arguing by which those I am now dealing with endeavour to prove the Air to be the coldest Body in the World I shall endeavour to prove that it is not so For their grand and as far as I remember their only considerable Argument is drawn from Experience which shows that water begins to freez at the Top where 't is exposed to the Air but to this vulgar Experiment I oppose that of mine which I have often mentioned already to other purposes that by an application of salt and snow I can make water that would else freez at the Top begin to freez at the Bottom or at any side I please and that much sooner then the common Air even in a sharp frosty night would be able to congeal it and when in exceeding cold weather the Ambient Nocturnal Air had reduc'd a parcel of Air purposely included in a convenient glass to as great a degree of condensation as it could I have more then once by the External application of other things been able to condense it much farther which argues that 't is not the Air as such but some adventitious frigorifick Corpuscles taking that term as I do in this Treatise in a large sense that may sometimes be mingled with it which produce the notablest degrees of
Nitre alone without speaking of either ice or snow and in the other place not only his words seem to import that notwithstanding the addition of the other ingredients the Corpuscles of the Nitre expiring out of the mixture and penetrating into the water are they that make it freez but the Exigence of his discourse seems to require such an interpretation for to say it is the Corpuscles of the Nitre that were harbour'd in the ice or snow that freez the water they invade is no better then to beg the Question For besides that he ought to prove that there are multitudes of the Corpuscles of Nitre lodg'd in snow and ice Besides this I say since these two Bodies are said to be water before they were congealed to grant what his Explication supposes about ice and snow is to grant in effect that Nitre alone without ice or snow can turn water into ice which is the thing that Experience warranted us lately to deny and if this be all that is meant by the Experiment the mixing of Nitre with the ice or the snow will signifie very little to evince what should be proved For if instead of Nitre you take Sea-salt or the spirit of Salt nay the inflamable part of Wine the Experiment will succeed and yet I think Gassendus would not have the Corpuscles of these Bodies to be frigorifick like those of Nitre which yet they may be prov'd to be by the same Argument which is imployed to show that the Corpuscles of the Nitre which is added as a distinct ingredient to the ice or to the snow are the Efficients of the Congelation 25. Having thus examin'd Gassendus his Experiments we will now as our next and last Argument touching this subject subjoyn our own as far as we can find any of them among our notes some of which follow in these words 26. As cold as they think Salt-petre to be who teach its spirituous parts to be the Grand and Catholick efficients of cold yet we found that it would dissolve ice readily enough as well as Sea-salt c. are wont to do as we collected from this That roch'd Petre mingled with ice would freez the vapors wandring in the Air to the outside of the single Vial wherein we made the Experiment which the ice alone would not have done and having placed some 〈◊〉 sie beaten Nitre of the same parcel in little heaps here and there upon plates of ice we manifestly found them to sink into the ice which argued their dissolving it and having put some of it upon a thick and smooth piece of ice we found that it had 〈◊〉 a hole quite through it whilest the surrounding part of the ice remain'd of a good thickness 27. We took a large single Vial almost full of water and put it into as much roch'd Petre as by keeping it a good while by the fires side we could dissolve in it of which one mark was that there remain'd a pretty deal of Salt intire 〈◊〉 the Bottom of the liquor this being expos'd to the Air during an extremely sharp night and a good part of the day the solution was 〈◊〉 so hard to the very Top of the liquor that having broken the glass we could hardly break the included mass But at the Bottom there 〈◊〉 pear'd some liquor with Crystals of Nitre well figur'd that seem'd to have shot in it and argued the Water to be sufficiently impreguated with the Salt 28. As for the spirituous parts of Nitre so far forth as their temper as to heat or cold can be judg'd by distillation and by Weather-glasses they are not actually more cold then some other Liquors and appear rather to be potentially 〈◊〉 then cold at least they seem indispos'd to turn water into ice since we have 〈◊〉 that the spirit of Nitre will readily enough turn ice into water 29. These three foregoing 〈◊〉 show that Salt-petre is no such 〈◊〉 derfully cold Body but that 〈◊〉 are others colder as being able to freez water which Nitre could not congeal Nay they manifest that Nitre which is said to be the efficient of ice does thaw and dissolve it and so seems at least in reference to It to be rather hot then cold 30. I shall now add one note more to show it does not always make water so much as equally cold with the common Air the Experiment I find thus recorded 31. We took a seal'd Weather-glass and by a little pulley fastned to a frame suspended it in a solution of roch'd-Petre as strong as we could make it without heat as appear'd by a pretty Quantity of Nitre that had continued some days undissolved in the vessel which was a Beer-glass with a flat Bottom After the Ball of the Weather-glass had been suspended in this liquor to try whether the Ambient Air were not at this time colder then the Liquor it being a cloudy and windy day and betwixt the hours of 11. and 12. though both the Weather-glass and it had stood some days in the same place I lifted up the glass out of the water by the string it hung by that I might not touch it with my warm hands and found the Liquor in the glass to descend by degrees about two divisions which were eights of an inch and then by the string lifting up the Weather-glass and putting again the solution of Nitre under it the included Liquor was impell'd up again two divisions and sometimes two divisions and a half for to satisfie my self the more fully I repeated the Experiment several times and observ'd that the included liquor usually ascended the first division so fast that the eye could perceive its progress and that the ascent upon the immersion in the dissolv'd Nitre was discernably quicker then the descent upon the removal of the Weather-glass into the open Air though the space both of the one and of the other were about either two divisions or two divisions and a half 32. If it be here demanded what then I think of the frigifactive Virtue of Nitre I must answer that I have not yet fully satisfi'd my self concerning it but thus much I am not willing to deny That among divers other Bodies that upon several occasions exhale from the Terrestrial Globe those Corpuscles that are of a Nitrous Nature may be for the most part well qualified to refrigerate the Air and I am not indispos'd to think that there may be store of little saline Bodies of kin to Nitre that especially at certain times 〈◊〉 in great multitudes to and fro in some parts of the Atmosphere but that this aerial salt which some moderns call volatile Nitre should be true and perfect Salt-petre is more then I am sure of and that this Salt alone should be the summum frigidum is more then as yet I am convinc'd of especially since for ought I know there may be in the bowels of the Earth whence I have seen many concretes digg'd out whose very names and
outsides are for the most part unknown even to Chymists themselves divers other Bodies besides Salt-petre whose steams may have a power of refrigerating the Air as great in proportion to their Quantity as those of Salt-petre and since common salt in artificial glaciations is found to cooperate as powerfully as Salt-petre it self and since it is undeniably a Body of which there is a vast quantity in the Terrestrial Globe and which by reason of the Sea where it abounds is exceedingly diffus'd I see no great reason why we may not aswel esteem that kind of Salt among the Catholick efficients of Cold and the rather because that the smallest Corpuscles our eye discerns of Sea-salt are wont to be though not exactly of a Cubical figure which is that figure Philoponus informs us the great Democritus of old justly admir'd by Gassendus assign'd to the Atoms of cold whereas according to Gassendus himself the Corpuscles of Nitre at least as far as sense has inform'd us are not the most conveniently shap'd to produce cold since he labours to show that the figure of frigorifick Atoms is to be Tetrahedrical or Pyramidal whereas the Crystals or Grains great or small into which good Salt-petre shoots are wont to be Prismatical having their base Sexangular but to return to what I was saying concerning the congealing of water with ice I shall subjoyn that the same Experiment countenances my conjecturing that oftentimes it may not be emanations of one Salt or other Body but a peculiar and lucky conjunction of those of two or more sorts of them that produces the intense degree of cold as we see that ice and snow themselves have their coldness advanc'd as to its effects by the mixture either of Sea-salt or Nitre or spirit of Wine or any other appropriated additaments Nay I may elsewhere have occasion to shew that actual Cold may be manifestly promoted if not generated by the addition of a Body that is not actually Cold. But to all this I must add that I doubt whether any of those saline or Terrestrial expirations either single or conjoyned be the adequate causes of cold since for ought I know there may be other ways of producing it besides the introduction of frigorifick whether Atoms or Corpuscles of which we may have occasion to take some notice hereafter In the mean time having discours'd thus long against the admitting a primum frigidum I think it not amiss to take notice once more that my design in playing the Sceptick on this subject is not so much to reject other mens probable opinions of a primum frigidum as absolutely false as 't is to give an account why I look upon them as doubtful Title XVIII Experiments and Observations touching the Coldness and Temperature of the Air. 1. I Have shewn in the former Section that the Air is not the Primum Frigidum but yet I cannot readily yield my assent to the Opinion of the learned Gassendus and some others who have written before and since him that the Air is of it self indifferent that is neither cold nor hot but as it happens to be made either the one or the other by external Agents For if we take Cold in the obvious and received Acception of the word that is for a Quality relative to the senses of a Man whose Organs are in a good or middle Temper in reference to Cold and Heat 〈◊〉 am hitherto inclinable to think that we may rather attribute Coldness to the Air then either Heat or a perfect Neutrality as to Heat and Cold. For to make a Body cold as to sense it seems to be sufficient that its minute Corpuscles do less agitate the small parts of our Organs of Feeling then they are wont to be agitated by the Blood and other fluid parts of the Body and consequently if supposing the Air devoid of those calorifick and frigorifick Atoms to which the learned Men I was naming ascribe its heat and cold it would constitute a fluid which either by reason of the minuteness of its parts or their want of a sufficiently vehement motion would less affect the sensory of Feeling then the internal liquors and spirits of the body are wont to do and so it would appear actually cold Nor is it necessary that all liquors much less all fluids should be as much agitated as the blood and vital humors of a humane body as we see to omit what in the last Section is mention'd about newly emitted Urine and to skip other obvious instances in those Fishes and other Animals whose Blood and analogous Juices are always and that in the state which passes for their natural state actually Cold to our Touch. And I see no sufficient reason why we should not conceive the Air even in its natural state at least as far forth as it can be said to have a natural state to be one of the number of cold Fluids For as to the main if not only Argument of Gassendus and others namely That as we see the Air to be easily heated by the Action of the Sun or the fire so we see it as easily refrigerated by ice and snow and Northerly winds and other Efficients of Cold and that heat and cold reign in it by turns in Summer and in Winter This only proves what I readily grant that the Air is easily susceptible at several times of both these contrary Qualities but it does not shew that one is not more connatural to it then the other as we see that the water may be easily depriv'd of its fluidity by the circumposition of snow and salt and reduc'd to be fluid again by the Sun or the Fire and yet according to them as well as others fluidity not Firmness is the natural quality of water But this is not that which I lay most weight upon for I considered that it is manifest and acknowledg'd by these learned Men themselves that the heat of the Air is adventitious to it and communicated by the beams of the Sun or of the Fire or by some other Agents naturally productive of heat as well in other Bodies as the Air And 't is also evident that upon the bare absence for ought else that appears of the Sun or Extinction of the Fire or removal of the other causes of heat the Air will as it were of its own accord be reduc'd to Coldness Whereas that there are swarms of frigorifick Atoms diffus'd through the Air from which all its coldness proceeds is but an Hypothesis of their own far from being manifest in it self and not hitherto that I know of prov'd by any fit Experiment or cogent reason And though in some cases I am not adverse to the admitting such Corpuscles as may in a sense be styl'd frigorifick yet I see not why we should have recourse to them in cases where such a bare cessation or lessening of former motion as may easily be ascrib'd to manifest causes may serve the turn as to a Sensible for
to treat in this place of Winds in general and much more to examine the several causes of winds that are assign'd by several Authors and therefore when I have once given this intimation that divers of these opinions may be more easily reconcil'd then the maintainers of them seem to have thought to the Truth if not to one another The causes that may produce wind being so various that many of those propos'd may each of them in some cases be true though none of them in all cases be sufficient having hinted this I say it may suffice on this occasion to subjoyn three or four observations to prove and illustrate the matter of fact delivered in the Proposition And first 't is a known Observation in these parts of the world that Northerly and Northeasterly winds do at all times of the year bring cold along with them and commonly if it be Winter Frost And here in England I have sometimes wondred at the power of the winds to bring not only sudden Frosts but sudden Thaws when the frost was expected to be setled and durable which yet seems to hold commonly but not without exception For during one of the considerablest Fits of Frost and Snow that I have taken notice of in England I remember that I observed not without some wonder that the Wind was many days Southerly unless it may be said That this Southerly Wind was but the Return of a stream of Northerly Wind which had blown for many days before and might by some obstacles and agents not here to be inquir'd after be made to wheel about or recoyl hither before it had lost the greatest portion of the refrigerating Corpuscles it consisted of before The formerly mention'd Prosper Alpinus attributes strange things to the Northerly wind that blows in Aegypt as to the cooling and refreshing the Air in spight of the violent 〈◊〉 that would otherwise be 〈◊〉 And many in Egypt ascribe to the Aetesian Winds that almost miraculous ceasing of the Plague at Grand Cairo of which we elsewhere speak Dominatur autem aer says he summè calidus ipsius caeli ut dictum est ratione quod haec civitas 〈◊〉 Tropico Cancri tantum 6. gradibus distet Quâ brevi inter-capedine dum sol ad illum accedit Tropicum illorum Zenith fit propinquior aer ille valdè incalescit nisi Aetesiae venti tunc à septentrione spirarent vehementissimus qui vix à nostris perferri possit caloris aestus sentiretur Advenae nostri iis provenientibus ad subterranea loca confugiunt in quibus morantur quousque ille ventorum ardor residerit atque cessaverit Conjunxit haec incommoda Deus Optimus cum aliis quibusdam bonis nam ubi calidissimi illi venti conticuere statim à Septentrione flare alii incipiunt qui subitaneum inflammatis atque laxatis corporibus solatium praestant Si enim illi diu perseveraverint nemo in eâ regione vivere possit Whence winds should have this power to change the Constitution of the Air and especially to bring cold along with them is not so easie to be determin'd Indeed the other Qualities and even the heat that is observable in winds may for the most part be probably enough deriv'd from the Qualities of the places by which they pass Of this we have already given an example or two in the passages lately mention'd And it may be further confirm'd by what Acosta says that he himself saw in some parts of the Indies namely That the Iron Grates were so rusted and consumed by a peculiar wind that pressing the mettal between your fingers it would be dissolv'd and crumbled as if it had been Hay or 〈◊〉 Straw And this Learned Traveller who seems to have taken peculiar notice of the winds affords us in divers places of his Book several Examples to confirm what we were saying though he take not the nature of the regions along which the wind blows to be alone in all cases a sufficient Cause of their Qualities of which yet we shall now mention but these two memorable passages In a small distance says he you shall see in one wind many diversities For example the Solanus or Eastern wind is commonly hot and troublesome in Spain and in Murria it is the coldest and healthfullest that is for that it passeth by the Orchards and that large Champiane which we see very fresh In Carthagene which is not far from thence the same wind is troublesome and unwholsome The Meridiâ—nal which they of the Ocean call South and those of the Mediterranean Sea Mezo Giorno commonly is rainy and boisterous and in the same City whereof I speak it is wholsome and pleasant And in his Description of Peru speaking of the South and South-west he affirms that this wind yet in this region is marvellous pleasing But though as we were saying many other Qualities of winds may be deduc'd from the Nature and Condition of the places by which they pass And though the heat also which Prosper Alpinus as we lately took notice attributes to the Southerly winds that blow in Egypt may be probably ascrib'd to the heated Exhalations and vapours they bring from the Southern and parched Regions they blow over yet whence the great coldness of Northern and Easterly winds should come may be scrupled at by many of the modern Philosophers who with divers Cartesians will not admit that there are any Corpuscles of Cold. And possibly I could about these matters propose some other difficulties not so easie to be resolved But not being now to discuss the Hypothesis about Cold I think it will be more proper in this place instead of entring upon disputes and Speculations to subjoyn an Experiment that I made to give some light about this matter Considering then that I had not met with any Trial of the Nature of that I am about to mention and that such a Trial might possibly prove Luciferous I caused a pretty large pair of ordinary Bellows to be kept a good while in the Room where the Experiment was to be made that it might receive the Temperature of the Air in that Chamber then placing upon a board one of those flat Bottom'd Weather-glasses that I elsewhere describe to contain a movable drop of pendulous water by blowing at several times with intermissions upon the bubble or lower end of the Weather-glass though the wind blown against my hand were as to sense very manifestly cold yet it did not cool the air included in the Bubble but rather a little warm'd it as appear'd by a small but sensible ascension of the pendulous drop each time that after some interpos'd rest the lower part of the glass was blown upon which seem'd to proceed from some small alteration towards warmth that the air received by its stay though short in the Bellows as seem'd deducible from hence that if by closely covering the Clack the matter were so ordered
may be very warrantably question'd For 't is evident in waters we expose to freez in large vessels that the congelations begin at the surface where the liquor is 〈◊〉 to the Air and thence as the cold continues to prevail the ice increases and thickens downwards and therefore we see that Frogs retire themselves in frosty weather to the bottom of ditches whence I have had many of them taken out very brisk and vigorous from under the thick ice that cover'd the water And I have been informed by an observing person that at least in some places 't is usual in Winter for shoals of Fishes to retire to those depths of the Sea if not of Rivers also where they are not to be found in Summer Besides if Rivers were frozen at the 〈◊〉 we must very frequently meet in the emergent pieces of ice the shapes of those irregular Cavities and Protuberances that are often to be found in the uneven soils over which Rivers take their course whereas generally those emergent pieces of ice are flat as those flakes that are generated on the surface of the water Moreover if even deep rivers freez first at the bottom why should not very many Springs and Wells 〈◊〉 first at the bottom too the contrary of which nevertheless is obvious to be observ'd In confirmation of all which we may make use of what we formerly noted in the Section of the Primum Frigidum about the 〈◊〉 of the Masters of the French Salt-works who by overflowing the Banks and Causeways all the winter keep them from being spoil'd by the srost which could not be done if the waters they stand under froze as well at the bottom as at the Top. But I find that that which deceives our Water-men is that they often observe flakes of ice to ascend from the bottom of Rivers to the Top and indeed it often happens that after the hard frost has continued a while these emergent pieces of ice do very much contribute to the freezing over of Rivers For coming in some of the narrower parts of them to be stopp'd by the superficial ice that reaches on each side of the River a good way from the Banks towards the middle those flat icy bodies are easily cemented by the violence of the cold and by the help of the contiguous water to one another and by degrees straitning and at length choaking up the passage they give a stop to the other flakes of ice that either emerging from the bottom or loosened from the banks of the River or carried down the stream towards them and these being also by the same Cold cemented to the rest the River is at length quite frozen over And the reason why so many flakes of ice come from the bottom of the River seems to be that after the water has been frozen all along near the banks either the warmth of the Sun by day or some of those many casualties that may perform such a thing does by thawing the ground or otherwise loosen many pieces of that ice together with the earth stones c. that they adher'd to from the more stable parts of the banks and these heavy bodies do by their weight carry down with them the ice they are fastned to but then the water at the bottom of the river being warm in comparison of the Air in frosty weather since that even common water is so we have manifested by experience where we show how much sooner ice will be dissolv'd in water then thaw'd in Air the dispers'd ice is by degrees so wrought upon that those parts by which it held to the stones earth or other heavy bodies being resolv'd the remaining ice being much lighter bulk for bulk then water gets loose and straightway emerges and may perhaps carry up with it divers stones and clods of earth that may yet happen to stick to it or be inclos'd in it the sight of which perswades the Water-man that the flakes of ice were generated at the bottom of the river whereas a large piece of ice may carry up and support bodies of that kind of a great 〈◊〉 in case the ice it self be proportionably great so that the Aggregate of the ice and heavy bodies 〈◊〉 not the weight of an equal bulk of water On which occasion I remember that Captain James Hall in a voyage extant in Purchas relates that upon a large piece of ice in the Sea they found a great stone which they judg'd to be three hundred pound weight But of the Tradition of the Water-men we shall say no more then that this hath been discours'd but upon no great information though the best we could procure so that for further satisfaction it were to be desir'd that either by sending down a Diver or by letting down some instrument fit to feel if I may so speak the bottom of Rivers with and to try whether ice if it met with any be loose from or uniformly coherent to the ground and also bring up parcels of whatever stuff it meets with there the matter were by Competent Experiments put out of doubt We took a seal'd Weather-glass furnish'd with spirit of Wine and though not above 10. inches long in all yet sensible enough and having caus'd a hole to be made in the Cover of a Box just wide enough for the smaller end of the Glass to be thrust in at we inverted the Thermometer so that the ball of it rested upon the cover of a Box and the pipe pointed directly downwards then we placed about the ball a little beaten ice and salt and observ'd whether according to our expectation the tincted spirit that reach'd to the middle of the pipe or thereabouts would be retracted upon the refrigeration of the liquor in the ball and accordingly the spirit did in very few minutes ascend in that short pipe above an inch higher then a mark whereby we took notice of its former station and would perhaps have ascended much more if the application of the frigorifick mixture had been continued by which and another succeeding Experiment to the same purpose it seems that the condensation of liquors by cold is not always effected by their proper gravity only which ordinarily may be sufficient to make the parts fall closer together but whether in our case the contraction be assisted by some little tenacity in the liquor or by the spring of some little aerial or other spirituous and Elastick particles from which the instrument was not perfectly freed when it was seal'd up or which happened to be generated within it afterwards will be among orher things more properly inquir'd into in another place where we may have occasion to make use of this Experiment There is a famous Tradition that in Muscovy and some other cold Countries 't is usual out of Ponds and Rivers to take up good numbers of Swallows inclos'd in pieces of ice and that the benumm'd birds upon the thawing of the ice in a warm room will come to
access to the Air was that which destroy'd Fishes in frozen Ponds I thought upon this Epedient I procur'd a glass vessel with a large belly and a long neck but so slender that it was only wide enough for the body of the Fishes to pass through and then having fill'd the vessel with some live Gudgeons and a good Quantity of water the neck of it was made to pass through a hole that was left or made for it in the midst of a metalline plate or wooden Trencher which could descend no lower then the neck because of the inferior part of the glass that would not suffer it and which serv'd to support a mixture of Ice or Snow and Salt which was appli'd round about the extant neck of the glass By this contrivance I propos'd to my self a double advantage the first that whereas in broad vessels 't is not always so easie as one would think to be sure that the surface of the water is quite frozen over in every part by this way I could easily satisfie my self by inverting the glass and observing that the ice had so exactly choak'd up and stopt the neck that no drop of water could get out not any bubble of Air get in and yet the Fishes had liberty enough to play in the subjacent water The other conveniency was that the frigorifick mixture being appli'd to the neck no water was congeal'd or extremely refrigerated but that which was contain'd in the neck so that there seem'd no cause to suspect that in case the Fishes thus debarr'd of Air should not be able to live in the water it was rather Cold then want of Air that kill'd them But though not having then been able by reason of a remove to prosecute these Trials to the utmost nor to register all the circumstances I shall not lay much weight upon it yet I remember that the included Fishes continued long enough alive to make me shrowdly suspect the Truth of the vulgar Tradition Another time being destitute of the conveniency of such glasses I caus'd some of the same kind of Fishes to be put into a broad and flat earthen vessel with not much more water then suffic'd perfectly to cover them and having expos'd them all night to a very intense degree of cold I found the next morning that some hours after day they were alive and seem'd not to have been much prejudiced by the cold or exclusion of Air. 'T is true that there was a very large moveable bubble under the ice but that seem'd to have been generated by the Air or some Analogous substance emitted out of the Gills or bodies of the Fishes themselves for that the surface of the water was exactly frozen over which does not in such Trials happen so often as one would think I found by being able to hold the vessel quite inverted without losing one drop of water And that this large bubble might possibly proceed from the Fishes themselves I was induc'd to suspect because having at different seasons of the year for divers purposes kept several sorts of Fishes and particularly Gudgeons for many days in glass vessels to satisfie my self about some Phaenomena I had a mind to observe I have often by watching them seen them lift up their mouthes above the surface of the water and seem to gape and take in Air and afterwards let go under water out of their mouthes and gills divers bubbles which seem'd to be portions of the Air they had taken in perhaps a little alter'd in their bodies And particularly in Lampries of which odd sort of Fishes I elsewhere make mention I have with pleasure both observ'd and show'd to ingenious men that being taken out of the water into the Air and then held under water again they very manifestly appear'd to squeez out and that not without some force at those several little holes which are commonly mistaken for their eyes numerous and conspicuous bubbles of Air which they seem'd to have taken in at their mouthes if not also at those holes But of these matters a fitter occasion may perhaps invite me to say more To return now to our Gudgeons I shall add that to satisfie my self further what cold and want of Air they may be brought to support I expos'd a couple of them in a bason to an exceeding bitter night and though the next day I found the ice frozen in the vessel to a great thickness and one of the Fishes frozen up in it there remaining a little water unfrozen the other Fish appear'd through the ice to move to and fro and the ice being afterwards partly thaw'd and partly broken not only that Fish was found lively enough but the other which I alone judg'd not to be quite dead though when the ice was broke it lay moveless did in a few minutes so far recover as to tow after it if I may so speak a good piece into which his tail remain'd yet inserted and though one of these and some other Gudgeons that had been already weakned by long keeping were once more expos'd in the Bason to the frost and suffer'd to lye there till they were frozen up yet the ice being broken in which they were inclos'd though their bodies were stiff and crooked and seem'd to be stark dead lying in the water with their bellies upwards yet one of them quickly recovered and the other not very long after began to show manifest signs of life though he could not in many hours after so far recover as to swim with his back upwards 'T is true that these Fishes did not long survive but of that two or three not improbable reasons might be given if it were worth while to name here any other then this that the ice they had been frozen up in or the violence that was offered them by the fragments of it when it was broken had wounded them as was manifest enough by some hurts that appear'd upon their bodies yet some other Gudgeons were irrecoverably frozen to death by being kept inclos'd in ice during if I misremember not the time three days And as for other Animals I caus'd a couple of Frogs to be artificially frozen in a wide mouth'd glass furnish'd with a convenient quantity of water but though they seem'd at first inclos'd in ice yet looking nearer I found that about each of them there remain'd a little turbid liquor unfrozen as if it had been kept so by some expirations from their bodies Wherefore causing either the same or two others for I do not punctually remember that circumstance to be carefully frozen and for a considerable while I found that notwithstanding the ice into which most part of the water was reduc'd not only one of them before the ice was broken appear'd to be perfectly alive but the other that was moveless and stiff and lying with the belly upwards in a Bason of cold water whereinto it was cast did in a very few minutes begin to swim about in it I
another Treatise to which such matters more properly belong 'T is known that the Schools define cold by the property they ascribe to it of congregating both Heterogeneous and Homogeneous things I thought it not amiss to attempt the making some separations in bodies by the force of Cold. For if that hold true in this climate which has been observ'd by Travellers and Navigators in Northern Regions that men may obtain from Beer and Wine a very strong spirit and a phlegme by congelation it seems probable that in divers other liquors the waterish part will begin to freez before the more spirituous and saline and if so we may be assisted to make divers separations as well by cold as by heat and dephlegme if I may so speak some liquors as well by congelation as by distillation but I doubt whether the ordinary frosts of this Countrey can produce a degree of cold great enough to make such divisions and separations in bodies as have been observ'd in the more Northern Climates For though having purposely hung out a glass-bottle with a quart of Beer in it in an extraordinarily sharp night I found the next morning that much the greatest part of the Beer being turn'd into ice there remain'd somewhat nearer the middle but nearer the bottom an uncongeal'd liquor which to me and others seem'd stronger then the Beer and was at least manifestly stronger then the thaw'd ice which made but a spiritless and as it were but a dead drink yet in some other Trials my success was not so considerable as some would have expected For having put one part of high rectifi'd spirit of Wine to about five or six parts if I misremember not of common water and having put them into a round glass and plac'd that in beaten ice and salt though the mixture were in great part turn'd into ice yet I could not perceive that even two liquors so slightly mingled were any thing accurately severed from one another although once to enable my self the better to judge of it the spirit of Wine I imploy'd was beforehand deeply tincted with Cochinele and therefore I the less wonder that in Claret Wine I could not make any exact separation of the red and the colourless parts However I thought it not amiss to try how far in some other liquors this way of separating the waterish and more easily congealable part from the rest would or would not succeed And I remember that a large glass vessel wherein spirit of Vinegre was exposed to the cold a considerable part was turned into ice whose swimming argued it to be lighter then the rest of the liquor but though I put some of this ice in a glass by it self to examine by its weight and taste when thaw'd how much it differ'd from the uncongeal'd part of the spirit my hopes were disappointed by a misfortune which was not repaired by my exposing afterwards a smaller quantity of spirit of Vinegre to the Nocturnal Air for that proved so cold that the whole was turned into ice wherefore I must reserve for another opportunity the prosecuting that Experiment as also the trying whether a separation of the Serous or the Oleaginous parts of Milk may be effected For though once the frost seem'd to have promoted a separation of Creme notwithstanding that heat also may do it and though another time there seem'd to be another kind of divulsion of parts made by congelation yet for want of leisure to prosecute such Trials they prov'd not satisfactory no more then did some attempts of the like nature that I made upon blood by freezing it But notwithstanding these discouragements I resolv'd to try what I could do upon Brine For calling to mind the Relations mentioned in the XV. Title and elsewhere which seem to argue that in some cases the ice of the Sea-water may being thaw'd yield fresh water and being the more inclin'd to think it worth Trial by a Physician I since happened to discourse with about this matter who affirm'd to me that sailing along the coast of Germany he had taken out of the Sea ice that being thaw'd he found to afford good fresh water I began to consider whether we might not by cold free salt water at some seasons of the year from a great deal of the phlegme which 't is wont to cost much to free them from by fire and other means For a little help towards the diminution of the fresh water is look'd upon as so useful an Experiment by many that boil salt out of the salt springs that in some Countries that are thought the skilfullest in that trade they make their salt-water fall upon great bundles of small brush-wood that being thereby divided and reduc'd to a far greater superficies there may in falling through some of the purely Aqueous parts exhale away wherefore dissolving one part of common salt in 44. times its weight of common water that it might be reduc'd either exactly or near to the degree of saltness that has been by several writers observed in the water of our neighbouring Seas and having likewise caus'd another and much stronger Brine to be made by putting in to the water a far greater proportion of salt for so there is in many of our salt springs we expos'd these several solutions to the congealing cold of the Air in frosty weather where the last mention'd solution being too strongly impregnated with the salt continued some days and nights altogether uncongeal'd but that weaker solution which emulated Sea water being expos'd in a shallow and wide mouth'd vessel that shape being judg'd the most proper we could procure for our design the large superficies that was expos'd to the Air did as we expected afford us a cake of ice which being taken off and the rest of the liquor expos'd again to the Air in the same vessel we obtain'd a second cake of ice and taking the remaining which seem'd to be indispos'd enough to congelation we found that by comparing it with that which was afforded us by the first cake of ice permitted to thaw there appear'd a very manifest difference betwixt the water whereinto the ice was resolv'd scarce tasting so much as brackish whereas the liquor that had continued uncongeal'd was considerably salt in taste And if I had had the conveniency of examining my self these two liquors Hydrostatically as I was fain to have them examin'd by another I doubt not but by their weight I should have discovered precisely enough the difference between them which the person I employ'd found to be considerable and consequently should have been assisted to make an estimate of the advantage that might be afforded by the operation of the cold towards the freezing of the Brine from its superfluous water But though I had not a quantity of ice great enough to satisfie me whether that little brackishness of taste I have mention'd proceeded from some saline Corpuscles that concurr'd to the constituting of the ice it self or did only adhere
18. Title where I recited the Experiment of the infrigidating Winds I should more expresly have taken notice of this circumstance that to satisfie my self that 't was not the bare Wind as such whose operation upon the Air included in the Ball of a Weather-glass made the liquor to ascend we put a mark upon the height it stood at when we had a pretty while blown upon it and then without removing the Bellows put ice and salt about the Iron pipe of it By which mixture the Air that was afterwards blown through that pipe was so cool'd in its passage as to make the liquor very manifestly to ascend even in a Weather-glass where I did imploy as I have elsewhere declared that I often do Quicksilver instead of water or spirit of Wine And least the vicinity of the frigorifick mixture should be suspected to have caus'd this contraction of the included Air we did sometimes purposely intermit the moving of the Bellows without removing the Weather-glass and though notwithstanding that vicinity the liquor would begin a little to subside yet when ever the cold spirits or the Corpuscles of the highly refrigerated Air were by the playing of the Bellows anew approach'd to or rather brought to touch in swarms the globular part of the instrument the Mercury would manifestly ascend And since we are speaking of Weather-glasses I shall on this occasion subjoyn That certain circumstances may also vary the success of another Experiment somewhat of kin to that lately repeated about the pendulous Drop which is briefly mentioned not far from the beginning of the first Praeliminary Discourse For though the common Thermometers that are here wont to be sold in shops have usually the Pipe of the Bolthead very large in proportion to the Ball and therefore are in that place said to be Weather-glasses not nice and though on such instruments in certain Temperatures of the Air intimated by the word sometimes imploy'd in that passage the Air blown out of a pair of Bellows against some part of the included Air would not especially at the beginning make the Air sensibly contract it self and the liquor ascend though at the very first and second blast the coldness of this artificial Wind might be very sensible to the touch which was the thing intended to be taught in that passage yet having the curiosity with other Bellows at another season of the year to blow long upon the Ball of a not common but nice Weather-glass of my own making furnished with a pipe that was very slender I divers times but not always found the tincted liquor manifestly enough to ascend as if the Wind consisting of a more compress'd Air did by containing a greater number of cold particles in the same room more affect the internal Air then the contact of the calm and lax outward Air did before which disparity of events has given me the design of making further Trials with differing Thermoscopes at other seasons of the year to see if I can bring the matter to some certainty by discovering the cause of this contingency in which I afterwards suspected that some light degree of warmth or coolness in the Bellows themselves which as being unmanifest to the sense scap'd unheeded might have an interest When I was about some of the former Experiments I would willingly have had an opportunity of trying with a good seal'd Weather-glass what difference there would be betwixt the cold of the nocturnal Air in a frosty night in places where the Air was kept calm by being shelter'd from the wind not by inhabited buildings but by some Wall or other body whence any warm Effluviums were least to be expected and betwixt the cold of the same Air in places where cold winds especially Northerly or Easterly did freely and strongly blow But my occasions then confining me to a Town I had not conveniency to make any secure observations of that nature and even in a more commodious place unless it were determined whether there be Corpuscles properly and constantly frigorifick upon whose account some winds are so much colder then others there may arise more scruples about this matter then I must now stay to discuss There is one thing more that it may be is not impertinent to mention before I take leave of the XVIII Title for in confirmation of what is there delivered concerning the Vicissitudes of these troublesome degrees of cold and heat within the the compass of the same Natural day complain'd of by the Patriarch Jacob and by Olearius I shall add that having since had opportunity to inquire about such matters of a learned Physician lately come from the Indies he assur'd me that notwithstanding the violent heats of the day he usually observed the nights to be so very cold that he was perswaded some positively frigorifick steams did in the night ascend out of the Earth and make it very expedient if not necessary for those English that live in the warmer parts of America to imitate the Natives in keeping fires under their Hammacks or hanging Beds I thought it might be a Luciferous Experiment in relation to an Hypothesis that might be propos'd about cold to try whether if two such liquors were provided as by being mix'd together would so far forth lose their fluidity as to obtain at least the consistence of an Unguent this impediment put to the former confused and greater agitation of their parts would produce any sensible degree of cold this I thought fit to try by immersing for a competent time the Ball of a tender seal'd Weather-glass into each of the liquors apart and then into the soft mixture their coalition would compose To produce such a mixture more ways then one it was not difficult for me by the help of some Experiments I had provided to add to my History of fluidity and sirmness But though a strong solution of Minium or calcined Lead in spirit of Vineger or a very strong infusion of good quick-Lime in water will either of them and one of them I did make use of though I have forgotten which coagulate a just proportion of good Sallet Oyl to name no other made by expression into such a consistence as I have been speaking of yet for want of a seal'd Thermoscope tender enough I cannot now repeat the Experiment and till I do I dare not draw any conclusion from it though if I much misremember not when I show'd it an ingenious person neither he nor I could perceive that the liquors by being depriv'd of their fluidity had acquir'd any thing of coldness discoverable by the seal'd Weather-glass It is much controverted among the Curious whether water be capable of Compression and divers have of late inclin'd to the negative upon observing a want of cogency in the Experiments that have been brought to evince the affirmative What Trials and Observations we long since made about this matter may be met with in some of our other Treatises wherefore I shall now subjoyn that
that Carneades being wont so to propose his opinion about Antiperistasis as only to deny that it is clearly made out by the reasons or Experiments that are commonly produc'd to evince it it were somewhat improper to urge him with observations that are not familiar and wont to be imploy'd but I know too that he is not so rigid an Adversary as not to allow me to mention some uncommon relations that I learned from men of good credit I shall tell you then that having purposely inquired of ingenious men that had been very deep under ground some in Coal-pits and some in Mines One of them affirmed that at the 〈◊〉 of the Grove as they call it or Pit he found it very hot in September And another that he often found it hot enough to be troublesome in Winter And a third who is himself a great seeker for Mines and a Master of considerable ones that he found it to be hot all the year long And to manifest that such Observations will hold even in gelid Regions I shall repeat to you what I remember I read in the voyage of that ingenious Navigator Captain James who giving an account of Charleton Island which by his relation seems to be as cold as Iceland itself says That his men found it more mortifying cold to wade through the water in the beginning of June when the Sea was all full of ice then in December when it was increasing And he adds that which makes more to our present purpose and proves the other part of the doctrine of Antiperistasis That from their Well out of which they had water in December they had none in July And to strengthen the observation yet further I will acquaint you with a relation to this purpose not unworthy your notice For hearing of an ingenious Physician that liv'd some years in and about Musco I applied my self to him as possibly you may have done for if I mistake not I have seen you together to know whether in that frozen Region he observed the Cellars to be hot in Winter And his answer to That and some other Questions of the like nature I put to him amounted in short to this That when I enquired whether their Springs and Wells were not all frozen in the Winter he told me that he saw some Springs whose warers froze not at all near the Spring-head but at a good distance from thence it began to be thinly cas'd over with ice He added That his own Well was about six fathoms deep between the surface of the earth and that of the water and that the water in it was as I remember about three or four fathoms deep and that not only this Well froze not all the Winter but that the Well of his neighbour which was but one fathom deep to the superficies of the water did not freez neither And to satisfie my curiosity about the steams of this water he told me that when a Bucket of water was newly drawn if it were agitated it would smoak But that from the Well it self when the water in it was left quiet and unstirred he did not perceive any smoak to arise 8. To all this I shall add this further circumstance that having purposely inquired whether in the Winter he found it as hot in Cellars at Musco as it is wont to be in that season in ours He answered me that when the doors and windows were carefully shut to hinder the immediate commerce betwixt the included and external Air he often found if he stay'd long in his Cellar it would not only defend him from the sharpness of the Russian cold as bitter as that is wont to be in Winter but keep him warm enough to be ready to sweat though he laid by his Furs So that if we may rely either upon the Testimony of our senses we must necessarily admit Cellars to be warmer in Winter then in Summer and consequently allow an Antiperistasis 9. Carneades Though I were not in haste I should not think it necessary to reply any thing else to the first part of what was said by Themistius then that what he alledges of the Universality of the Opinion he maintains may serve to recommend that which he opposes For the vulgar Doctrine about Antiperistasis being as he urges receiv'd and taught in all the Schools the Innovators he declaims against must have learned it there among the other Peripatetick tenents that youth is wont to be imbued with in those places so that it may rather seem the love of truth then of singularity that engages them against an opinion which before was their own as well as that of the generality of Scholars aud consequently against which they cannot maintain a Paradox that does not imply a Retractation But I shall not prosecute my Answer to Themistius's preamble since Eleutherius whom I am chiefly to speak to is too much a Philosopher to think Truth less her self for being slenderly attended or to think any men the less like to be Her followers because they are but few To come then directly to the controversie it self I think I need not tell one of you that the other mistakes my opinion about it For I perceive Eleutherius hath not quite forgotten that I have not been wont to deny an Antiperistasis as it may be but only as it is wont to be explicated But since Themistius seems to be willing to have me his Antagonist in this controversie and since Eleutherius himself seems to conspire with him I am content to act for a while the part you Gentlemen would have me take upon me and will propose to you part of what I would say for the opinion you impute to me in case I were really of it 10. To come then to the controversie it self though Themistius has drawn his proofs for the Antiperistasis of the Schools partly from Reason and partly from Experience yet the very same two Topicks seem to me to afford considerations that may justly warrant our calling it in question 11. And first if we look upon the reason of the thing considered abstractedly from the Experiments that are pretended to evince an Antiperistasis we cannot but think it may be very rational I say not to doubt of it but to reject it For in the first place according to the course of Nature one contrary ought to destroy not to corroborate the other And next 't is a maxime among the Peripateticks themselves That natural causes always act as much as they can And certainly as to our case wherein we treat not of living creatures I cannot but think the Axiom physically demonstrative For inanimate Agents act not by choice but by a necessary impulse and not being endow'd with Understanding and Will cannot of themselves be able to moderate or to suspend their actions And as for what Themistius alledges that it was necessary for the Preservation of Cold and Heat that they should be endowed with such a power of intending themselves
I mean the heating of quick-Lime in cold water I confess I cannot but admire the Laziness and Credulity of Mankind which have so long and generally acquiesc'd in what they might so easily have found to be false This I say because I was possibly the first that has had both the curiosity and boldness to examine so general and constant a Tradition yet I doubt not that you will soon be brought to take it as well as I for as great as popular an error For to let you manifestly see how little the Incalescence of the quick-Lime needs be allowed to proceed from the coldness of the ambient water if instead of cold water you quench it with hot water the Ebullition of the liquor will not only be as great as if the water were cold but oftentimes far greater As I have sometimes for curiosity removed boiling water from the fire and when the liquor had left of boiling but was yet scalding hot I put into it a convenient quantity of quick-Lime and after a while the water which as I said had ceas'd from boiling began to boil afresh with so much vehemence and such large and copious bubbles that it threatned to run over the Pot of which before the effervescence a considerable part was left unfill'd And this was no more then what I might well look for hot water being much fitter then cold to pervade nimbly the body of the Lime and hastily dissolve and set at liberty the igneous and saline parts wherewith it abounds And how much a greater interest salts may have in such incalescencies then Cold I have also taken pleasure to try by pouring Acid spirits and particularly spirit of salt upon good quick-Lime For by this means there would be a far greater degree of heat excited then if I had instead of spirit of Salt used common water And this whether I imploy'd the spirit cold or hot For in either case so small a portion as about the bigness of a Walnut of Lime put into a small glass would by the addition of a little spirit of Salt put to it by degrees both hiss and smoak and boil very surprizingly and notwithstanding the small quantity of the matter would conceive so great a heat that I was not able to hold the glass in my hand And to show some friends how little heat excited in quick-Lime by cold water proceeds barely from the coldness of that liquor I caus'd a parcel of good Lime to be beaten small and putting one part of it into a glass vessel I drench'd it plentifully with oyl of Turpentine more then it would imbibe and the other portion of the Lime I likewise drench'd with common water both these liquors having stood in the same room that they might be reduc'd by the same Ambient Air to a like degree of coldness the event of this Trial was what I look'd for that the oyl of Turpentine notwithstanding its actual coldness and the great subtilty and piercingness of parts which it has in common with other Chymical oyls being of an incongruous Texture seem'd not to make any dissolution of the powdered Lime and did not for several hours that I kept it produce that I perceived any sensible heat in the Lime Whereas to show that 't was not the fault of the Lime that part of it on which common water had been poured did after a little while conceive so strong a heat that it broke a large openmouth'd-glass into whose bottom it was put and not only grew so hot that I could not endure to hold it in my hand but sent out at the mouth of the glass though that were considerably distant from the Lime a copious white fume so hot that I could not well suffer the holding of my hand over it And to prevent a possible though invalid objection which I foresaw might be drawn against the Experiment made with oyl of Turpentine from the Oleaginous Nature of that liquor I covered a piece of the same sort of quick-Lime I have been speaking of with highly rectified spirit of Wine but though I left them together all night yet I perceived not that the liquor had at all slack'd the Lime which continued in an intire lump till upon the substituting of common water it did as I remember quickly appear to be slack'd since it fell assunder into a kind of minute white powder which was bating the colour almost like mud and would easily by a little shaking be disperst like it through the water 15. Eleutherius I ingeniously confess to you Carneades that what you say surprizes me for I thought it superfluous to try my self so acknowledged an Experiment being not able to imagine that so many learned men for so many Ages should so unanimously and confidently deliver a matter of fact of which if it were not true the falsity could be so easily discovered 16. Carneades For my part Eleutherius I confess I am wont to doubt of what they teach that seldom or never doubt And I hope you will forgive me if having found an assertion so general and uncontroul'd of a falsity so easie to be disprov'd I be inclinable to suspect the Truth of their other inferior Traditions about Antiperistasis and of these I will mention the two chiefest I have met with among the moderns for being contriv'd Experiments I presume you will easily believe they came not from Aristotle nor the Ancienter Schoolmen that commented upon Him 17. The first of these is the freezing a Pot to a Joynt-stool by a mixture of snow and salt by the fires side in which case 't is pretended that the fire does so intend the cold as to enable it to congeal the water that stagnated upon the surface of the stool betwixt That and the bottom of the Pot. But how little need there is of Antiperistasis in this Experiment you may guess by this that I have purposely made it with good success in a place in which there neither was nor ever probably had been a fire the room being destitute of a Chimney And this Trial of mine I could confirm by divers other Experiments of the like nature but that this one is sufficient 18. I proceed therefore to the other Experiment which is delivered by very learned men and for whom I have a great respect according to these if you take a somewhat large Pot and having fill'd it almost with snow place in the midle of the snow a Vial full of water this Pot being put over the fire the coldness of the snow will be so intended by the heat from which it flies into the water that it will turn that liquor into ice But though I several times tri'd this Experiment yet neither in earthen nor in silver vessels could I ever produce the promised ice And I remember that an eminently learned man that wondered to find me so diffident of what he said he knew to be true readily undertook to convince me by an Ocular proof but with
14. inches long furnished with good spirit of Wine and having provided an open mouth'd glass of a convenient shape and size and fill'd it but to a due height that it might not afterwards run over with common water I so ordered the matter that the stem of the Thermoscope being supported by the cork into which by a perforation or slit it was inserted when the glass was stopp'd by the cork the whole ball of the Thermometer was immers'd in the water that fill'd the wide mouth'd glass and did no where touch either the bottom or the sides of the glass so that the ball or bubble was every way surrounded with water The instrument being thus prepar'd we observ'd at what station the ambient cold water had made the tincted spirit rest in the stem of the Thermoscope and then having provided a fit proportion of warm water in a commodiously shaped vessel I remov'd the instrument into it and plac'd it so as that the external warm water reach'd to a convenient height on the outside of the open mouth'd glass But though I carefully watch'd whether the heat of the external water would increase or strike inwards the cold of that water which did immediately incompass the ball of the Weather-glass yet I perceived no such matter the tincted spirit in the stem keeping its station without sinking beneath it till the heat after a while having by degrees been diffus'd through the formerly cold water by the intervention of that now warmed the tincted spirit in the Thermometer began to ascend 56. And to reduce the other part too of the doctrine of Antiperistasis to the determination of an Experiment the same Thermoscope was plac'd in the same wide mouth'd glass just after the former manner only instead of the cold water that which immediately surrounded the glass was warm and when the warmth had impell'd up the tincted spirit till its ascent began to be very slow I immers'd the instrument to a convenient depth in a vessel that contain'd highly refrigerated water mingled with divers pieces of ice But notwitstanding my watchfulness it did not appear to me that the warmth of the water that did immediately encompass the ball of the Weather-glass was at all increas'd or intended by that Liquors being besieg'd by water exceeding cold for the languid motion of the tincted spirit upwards was not hereby so much as sensibly accelerated as it must have been considerably if the heat of the internal water had been so augmented or struck inwards by the cold of the external as the Schools Doctrine would have made one expect but rather the ascent was by the chillingness of the contiguous water quickly check'd and the formerly ascending spirit was soon brought to subside again And to give my self the fuller satisfaction about some of the chief Phaenomena of this and the former Experiment I had the curiosity to observe them more then once POSTSCRIPT A Sceptical Consideration of the Heat of Cellars in Winter and their Coldness in Summer THe foregoing Discourses of Carneades seem to have sufficiently shaken the Foundations of the Vulgar Doctrine of Antiperistasis so far forth as 't is superstructed upon the Vulgar Observations and Phaenomena whereon men are wont to build it and it seems to have also made it highly Probable that in case some of the Examples wont to be produc'd in favour of Antiperistasis should prove Historically true yet those Phaenomena may more congruously to the wonted proceedings of Nature be explicated by the detention of calorifick or frigorifick Corpuscles by the operation of the external cold or heat then to a cerain inexplicable self invigoration which is commonly propos'd in such a way as invests inanimate bodies with the prerogatives of free Agents But though Carneades his Adversaries seem not to have well made out the Historical part of the receiv'd Doctrine concerning cold yet upon an impartial survey of what has been alledg'd on both sides I freely confess that to me some of the matters of fact themselves seem not yet so clearly determined as I could wish for as to the obvious Phaenomena that nature does as it were of Her own accord present us they seem to have been but perfunctorily considered and our senses only being the judges of them we may easily as Carneades argues be impos'd upon by the unheeded predispositions of our Organs And as for contriv'd and Artificial Experiments there scarce seem to have been any made fit to clear the difficulties that invite me to suspend my judgement as to the grand Question of fact whether Cellars and other subterraneous places be really hotter in Winter then in Summer 'T is true that I have scarce met with any point wherein the modern Schoolmen seem to have so much consulted Nature as in this of Antiperistasis For inquiring what has been written of that subject that may either confirm or oppose what has in the precedent Dialogue been deliver'd about Antiperistasis I found that the curiousness and importance of the subject have made two or three of those writers less negligent then I suspected But though I have lately met with in them an Experiment or two that seem cogently to evince I do not say an Antiperistasis in the sense of the Schools but that subterraneal places are really hotter in Winter then in Summer yet I must for a while longer continue my suspension of judgement which that even such persons as are circumspect themselves may not think unreasonable I will briefly subjoyn the grounds of my Scepticism about this matter First then the learned Jesuite Zucchius who is wont to be far more industrious then other Aristotelians and on some subjects is careful to propose Experiments though he be not so clear and happy in expressing his thoughts assures us somewhere that having kept a good seal'd Weather-glass for three years together in a good Cellar he found the water to rise by the Coldness of the ambient Air in the Summer and to be depressed by the rarefaction of it in the winter which seems undeniably to infer that whatever be the reason of it the heat in subterraneal places is indeed greater in Winter then in Summer And another recent Schoolman who as I am told is of the same order though the learned Man publish'd his little Book under one of his Disciples Names affirms that he found by a Weather-glass that a Well at the place where he lived was colder in Summer and hotter in Winter And these assertions of Zucchius and the other Jesuite do I confess restrain me for a while from yielding a full assent to what Carneades hath delivered as to the matter of subterraneal Cold and Heat But on the other side I am not hitherto reduc'd by these Experiments to declare with his Adversaries against him because of the following scruples First then I consider that 't is not universally true which is wont to be indefinitely affirm'd and believ'd that Cellars and other subterraneal places are hotter in Winter
then in Summer For the instances produced by Carneades seem plainly enough to manifest the contrary and my own observations made in a Cellar with a seal'd Weather glass do keep me from dissenting from Carneades as to that point I would therefore make a distinction of subterraneal places for some are deep as the best sort of Cellars other deeper yet as the Hungarian Mines mention'd by Carneades out of Morinus and some again are but shallow as many ordinary Cellars and Vaults of these three sorts of subterraneal Places the deepest of all do not as far as the Authority of Mineralists above alledg'd may be reli'd on for I am yet inquiring further grow hot and cold according to the several seasons of the year as the vulgar doctrine of Antiperistasis requires but are continually hot The shallower sort of subterraneal places though by reason of their being fenc'd from the outward Air they are not so subject to the alterations of it whether to heat or cold as open places are yet by reason of their vicinity to the surface of the Earth they are so far affected with the mutations which the outward Air is liable to in several seasons of the year that in Winter though they be warm in respect of the colder Air abroad yet they are really at least some of them as far as I have tri'd colder in very cold weather and less cold in warm weather And in this opinion I am confirm'd by two things the one that having purposely inquir'd of the Polonian Nobleman mentioned by Carneades whether he had observ'd in his Country that in sharp Winters small Beer would freez in Cellars that were not very deep but would continue fluid in those that were he assured me he had taken notice of it The other thing is the Confession of the Anonymous Jesuite lately mention'd who acknowledges that he found but little difference between the Temperature of the water in the Well he examin'd in Summer and in Winter though it were a considerably deep one and adds a while after that at Florence where the subterraneal Vaults are shallower the Air is observ'd to be colder in Winter then in Summer though at Rome in their deep Cellars the contrary has been found So that the lower-most sort of subterraneal cavities being for ought appears perpetually hot and the upper or shallower sort of them being colder not hotter in cold weather then 't is in warm 't is about the Temperature of the middle sorts of them such as are the deeper and better Cellars that the question remains to be determined And thus much of my first consideration The next thing I shall offer to be consider'd is this That 't is not so easie a matter as even Philosophers and Mathematicians may think it to make with the weather-glasses hitherto in use an Experiment to our present purpose that shall not be liable to some exception especially if the Cellars or Wells where the observations are to be made be very deep For the gravity of that thick and vapid subterraneal Air and the greater pressure which the Air may there have by reason of its pressing according to an Atmospherical Pillar lengthened by the depth of the Cellar or Well may in very deep Cavities as well alter the height of the water in common Weather-glasses as heat and cold do and so make it uncertain when the mutation is to be ascrib'd to the one and when to the other or at least very difficult to determine distinctly what share is due to the pressure and what to the temperature of the Air. And this uncertainty may be much increas'd by this more important Consideration that not only in places where the heights of the Atmospherical Cylinders are differing the pressures of the Air upon the stagnant water in the Weather-glasses may be so too but even in the self same place the instrument remaining unmov'd the pressure of the Atmosphere may as I have often observ'd hastily and considerably alter and that without any constant and manifest cause at least that I could hitherto discover so that the erroneous estimate that may be hereby suggested of the temperature of the Air can scarce possibly be avoided without the help of a seal'd Weather-glass where the included liquor is subject to be wrought upon by the heat and cold not pressure of the Air. So that to apply this to Zucchius his Experiment unless he had been aware of this and unless I knew that he had divers times made his observations with the assistance of a seal'd Weather-glass it may be suspected that he might accidentally find the water in his common Weather-glass for such a one it appears he us'd as probably knowing no other to be higher when he look'd on it in Summer then when he look'd on it in Winter not because really the subterraneal Air was colder in the former season then in the latter but because the Atmosphere chanc'd then to be heavier and when I remember in how few hours I have sometimes and that not long since observ'd the Quicksilver both in a good Barometer and even in an unseal'd Weather-glass furnished with Quicksilver to rise almost an inch perpendicularly without any manifest Cause proceeding from cold I cannot think it impossible that in long Weather glasses furnish'd only with water or some such liquor the undiscerned alterations of the Atmospheres pressure may produce very notable ones in the height of the water in such instruments But this is not all that a jealous man might suspect For Zucchius having for ought appears made his Observations but in one place we are not sure but that may be one of those whereof there may be many on which the subterraneal Exhalations have a peculiar and not languid influence as Carneades has towards the close of his Discourse made probable out of the Relations of Olaus Magnus and Martinius touching the great and sudden thaws that sometimes begin from the bottom and thereby argue their being produc'd by copious steams that ascend from the lower parts of the Terrestrial Globe which may be further confirm'd by what he formerly noted of the sudden Damps that happen in many Mines But that which is of the most importance about our present inquiry remains yet to be mentioned which is that having had the curiosity to inquire whether no body else had made Experiments of the same kind I find that the learned Maignan had the same curiosity that Zucchius had but with very differing success and therefore though this inquisitive person do admit in his Disputation about Antiperistasis a Notion that I confess I cannot approve since to ascribe as he does a fuga Contrarii to Cold and Hot spirits is in my apprehension to turn inanimate Bodies into intelligent and designing Beings yet he does justly and rationally reject with Carneades the vulgar doctrine of Antiperistasis and confirms his rejection of it by two Experiments For first he says that he found with a Thermometer that when
in motion become vehemently cold in their passage For Mr. Hobs cannot as other Naturalists derive the coldness of freezing winds from the cold steams they meet with and carry along with them in their passage through cold Regions since then those steams rather then the wind would be the cause of that vehement coldness and so it might justly be demanded whence the coldness of those cold exhalations proceeds Besides that 't is very precarious and unconsonant to observation to imagine such a wind as he talks of to blow whenever great frosts happen since as we noted before very vehement glaciations may be observ'd especially in Northern Regions when the air is calm and free from winds 19. The account he gives in his seventh Section of turning water into ice is the most unsatisfactory I have ever yet met with for a good part of that Section is so written as if he were affear'd to be understood But whereas he supposes that by the indeavour of the wind to raise the parts of the water joyn'd with the indeavour of the parts of the water towards the Center of the Earth the uppermost parts of the water will be prest together and coagulated he says that which is very far from satisfactory For first ice is often produced where no wind can come to beat upon the uppermost parts of the water and to raise them and in vessels Hermetically seal'd which exactly keep out air and wind ice may be generated as many of our Experiments evince And this alone were a sufficient answer since the whole explication is built upon the action of the wind But this is not all we have to object for not to urge that he should have prov'd that the uppermost parts of the water must be raised in congelation especially since oyl and divers other liquors are contracted by it not to urge this I say what shew of probability is there that by the bare indeavour of the wind and the gravity of the superficiate parts of the water there should be any such forcible compression made as he is pleas'd to take for granted And yet this it self is less improbable then that supposing the upermost parts of the water to be pressed together that pressure is sufficient to coagulate as he speaks or rather congeal them into ice So bold and unlikely an assertion should at least have been countenanced by some plausible reason or an example in some measure parallel For I remember not any one instance wherein any degree of compression that has been imploy'd much less so slight a one as this must be considering the causes whence 't is said to proceed can harden any liquor into ice or any other hard body And in the Experiment we have elsewhere mentioned of filling a Pewter vessel with water and when 't is exactly clos'd compressing it by the knocks of a Hammer till the water be reduc'd to penetrate the very Pewter we found not that so violent a compression did give the water the least disposition to turn a hard body And as for the way Mr. Hobs assigns of Increasing the thickness of ice 't is very difficult to conceive how a cake of ice on the top of the water being hard frozen to the sides of the containing vessel and thereby severing betwixt the included water and the external air the wind that cannot come to touch the water because of the interposition of the hard and rigid ice should yet be able sometimes at the depth of nine or ten foot or much further to beat upon the subjacent water and turn it into ice And it is yet more difficult to conceive how the wind must do all this when as was lately noted the water does very often freez more and more downwards to a great depth in places where the wind cannot come to beat upon it at all And as to what Mr. Hobs further teaches that the ice must contain many particles of air receiv'd into it we have elsewhere occasion to show how 〈◊〉 he discourses about those Icy Bubbles 20. The reason he assigns of the freezing of water with Snow and 〈◊〉 does as little satisfie as the rest of his Theory of Cold. For not to mention that he affirms without proving it that Snow and Salt have in them a great deal of air it is very precarious to assert that this air must be prest out every way in wind which must rake the sides of the vessel for 't is strange that far more diligent observers then Mr. Hobs should take no notice of any such wind if any such wind there were but this is yet less strange then that which follows namely that this wind must so rake the sides of the vessel as to make the vessel by the same motion and action congeal the water within it For what affinity is there between a wind passing along the outside of a glass altogether impervious to it and the turning a fluid body included in that glass into a hard and brittle body The wind indeed may perhaps if it be strong a little shake or agitate the particles that compose the glass and those may communicate some of their motion to the contiguous parts of the water but why all this must amount to the turning of that water into ice is more I confess by far then I can apprehend Especially seeing that though you long blow upon a glass of water with a pair of Bellows where there is not an Imaginary wind as Mr. Hobs's but a Real and manifest one yet the water will be so far from being frozen that our formerly mentioned Experiments of blowing upon Thermometers make it probable that it will scarce be cool'd And if Sea-salt do contain so much air by vertue of which it as well as the Snow produces so intense a degree of Cold how chance that being resolv'd in a little water without Snow it does not produce at least a far greater degree of cold then we find it to do Besides in the Experiment we made and elsewhere mention of freezing water seal'd up in Bubbles though the Bubbles were suspended in other glasses whose sides no where touched them and the remaining part of whose cavities were fill'd some with air and some with unfreezing liquors what likelihood is there that Mr. Hobs's insensible Wind should be able to occasion so many successive Rakings through differing Bodies as there must be to propagate the congelative motion if I may so call it of the wind through the first glass to the included Air or Liquor and through that new Medium to the glass containing immediately the water and through that to the innermost parts of the seal'd up water And it might be further objected if it were worth while that Mr. Hobs does not so much as offer at a reason why spirit of Wine Aqua fortis or even Brine if it be of the strongest sort are not either by this mixture or here in England by the Wind in the open
Air turn'd into Ice as well as many other Liquors are 21. The reason why Cold is wont to be more remiss in rainy or cloudy weather then in that which is more clear is not better given by Mr. Hobs then by some others that have written before him for not to mention that I have seen great frosts and lasting enough in cloudy and sometimes very dark weather that which he talks of the winds being more strong in clear weather then in cloudy is of no great importance since common Experience shews that in clear weather the Air may be very cold and the frost very great where no wind is felt to rake as he would have it the superficies of the Earth Nor does experience bear witness to what he not warily enough pronounces that the less the wind is the less is the Cold. There are but two Phaenomena more which in this Section Mr. Hobs pretends to explicate The one is that in deep Wells the water does not freez so much as it does upon the superficies of the Earth But the reason of this we elsewhere take occasion to consider therefore in this place we need only note that Mr. Hobs has not rightly assigned it by ascribing it to the winds entring more or less into the Earth by reason of the laxity of its parts since besides that it is very improbable that the wind should not as he says it does not lose much of its force by entring into the Earth at its pores and other lesser cavities for that seems to be his meaning by the laxity of the Earths parts to so great a depth as water lies in several Wells subject to freezing besides this I say Experience teaches us that Wells may be frozen though their Orifices be well covered and the wind be thereby kept from approaching the included water by divers yards and very many Wells that are subject to freez when Northerly and Eastwardly winds reign will likewise be frozen in very cold Winters whether any wind blows or not 22. The other and last Phaenomenon Mr. Hobs attempts to explicate is That ice is lighter then water the cause whereof says he is manifest from what I have already shewn namely That air is receiv'd in and mingled with the particles of the water whilest it is in congealing But that this is not the true reason may be argued from hence that if a conveniently shap'd glass-vessel be fill'd top full with water and expos'd either unseal'd or seal'd to congelation the ice will have store of bubbles which at least in the seal'd vessel cannot by Mr. Hobs who will not affirm glass to be pervious to the Air be pretended to proceed from bubbles that got from without into the water whilest it was in congealing And we have sometimes had occasion to manifest by particular Experiments purposely made how little of Air there is even in those bubbles that are generated in ice made in vessels where the Air was not kept from being contiguous to the water 23. And thus have we gone through Mr. Hobs's Theory of Cold. In his Proposing of which we wish'd he had in Divers places been more Clear and in our cursory Examination of which we have seen that most of the particulars are either precarious or erroneous and were they neither yet the whole Theory would I fear prove very insufficient Since an attentive Reader cannot but have marked that this learned Author has past by far the greatest part even of the more obvious Phaenomena of Cold without attempting to Explicate them or so much as shewing in a general way that he had Consider'd them thought them explicable by his Hypothesis By which he that will fairly explain all the Phaenomena recited in the Notes we have been drawing together and which yet contain but a Beginning of the History of Cold shall give me a very good opinion of his Sagacity A Postscript THough the hast I am obliged to comply with keep me from annexing the Historical Papers wherewith I had thoughts to Conclude this Book concerning Cold yet since the Nature of the past Examen gave me but little Opportunity to teach the Reader any thing more considerable then that Mr. Hobs's Doctrine is Erroneous I am very inclinable to make him here some such little amends as the Time will permit for that Paucity of Experiments And therefore since in the last Section of the foregoing History upon occasion of an Experiment very Imperfectly and not intelligibly deliver'd by Berigardus I intimate my having elsewhere Plainly set down either the same he meant or one of that Nature and that with considerable Phaenomena unmention'd by him I chuse rather to borrow some Account of it from another Treatise to which it belongs then not gratifie some of the Curious to whom the Phaenomena I shew'd them of it seemed no less pretty then surprizing The way then that I us'd in making this Experiment may be gathered from the following directions Take of good unslak'd Lime three parts or thereabouts of yellow Orpiment one part of fair water 15. or 16. parts beat the Lime grosly and powder the Orpiment with care to avoid the noxious Dust that may fly up and having put these two ingredients into the water let them remain there for two or three hours or longer if needs be remembring to shake or stir the mixture from time to time By this means you will obtain a somewhat faetid Liquor whereof by warily Decanting or by Filtrating it the Clear part must be severed from the rest In the mean time take a piece of Cork and having lighted it so that it is kindled throughout remove it from the fire whilest 't is yet burning and by a quick immersion quench it in fair water And having by this means reduc'd it to a coal you may in case you have not err'd in the Operation by grinding it with a convenient Quantity of Gum-water bring it to the colour and consistence of a good black Ink that you may use with an ordinary Pen. Whilest these things are doing you may take what quantity you think fit of common Minium and two or three times its weight of spirit of Vineger which needs not be for this purpose much stronger then phlegm and to which even undistill'd Vineger may be a succedaneum and putting the powder and liquor into a glass Vial or any other convenient vessel let them infuse over hot Embers or in some considerably warm place for two or three hours more or less till the liquor have acquir'd a very sweet taste All things being thus prepar'd take a new 〈◊〉 at least a clean Pen and write with it some such thing as you either desire or need not fear to have read between if you please or which is safer Over the Lines which contain your secret and which are to be trac'd with the solution of 〈◊〉 for this Liquor if it be either well decanted or filtred
of some liquors will shew none in a greater The method I shall follow in delivering my observations shall be first to run over the various liquors or bodies whether fluid or consistent simple or compound c. used in this work Secondly what figures observable in those ices Thirdly some effects arising 〈◊〉 Fourthly some properties and qualities Fifthly some lets or helps both to freezing and thawing Sixthly some uses 〈◊〉 ice In pursuance of which particulars I had recourse to those ingenious 〈◊〉 of Mr. 〈◊〉 registred in your Cimelia and then to Bartholinus his late Book De Nive and to my own collected notes from various Authors adding whatsoever trials I thought meet And in all these I have barely set down matter of fact neither mentioning the Authors nor their errors which would have been both nauseous and tedious nor 〈◊〉 I endeavour to render a reason of the various 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which cannot be done without a volume but shall leave that province to an Honourable person of this Society who hath had much experience and reflections on this subject And now to my task As to my first head of things used I shall begin with common water which I exposed in a triple 〈◊〉 in like quantities and in open 〈◊〉 viz. first cold secondly boiling hot thirdly an equal mixture of both the former The effect was this the cold was frozen in one hour the boiling hot in two hours and the mixt in hour 1 and ½ but with this difference that the cold did freez first at the top and sides and had a large thick crust before there was any shew of ice in the boiling hot but the mixt and boiling hot began to freez first at the bottom of the vessels and when the top was cold then it freezed there also leaving betwixt the bottom and top of the vessel a cavity for the water which in time was wholly converted to ice The same succeeded most manifestly in these waters powred on a smooth table where the cold water was presently frozen before the boiling hot water could become cold at the bottom Water exhausted of air in Mr. Boyles engine was frozen almost as soon as a like quantity expos'd in an open pan The ice whereof appeared white and to consist purely of bubbles The glass used was a four ounce round vial and a small Tube one foot long half filled with water Fair water wherein Arsnick had been infused eight moneths congealed much sooner then a like quantity of water into very white ice Solutions of all the sorts of Vitriols freezed sooner in pans and Tubes then water or any other solution of the other salts by much though that of Alume came very little short of it The ice kept both colour and taste upon the least touch of the tongue in all of them A solution of Alume did freez into an ice whiter then milk and stuck so close to the sides of the pan that it could hardly be separated from it this was the firmest ice offered to me in all my trials next to which in both these qualities were the Vitriols especially the Roman Sandever quickly freezeth Frit sooner then it and Kelp then them both all of them into lumps very white and consequently not Diaphanous Sal Armoniac shewed some variety in point of time for in the same pan quantity and place with the other salted waters 't would for the most part freez long after the former though once it did freez before them Common salt two drachms dissolved in four ounces of common water for that proportion I observed in all my solutions did in 30. hours space in the hardest season turn to pretty hard and white ice whereas the former solutions became so in two or three hours at the most A beer-glass was filled with stinking Sea-water full of salt which within 26. hours acquired at the top a plate of ice of the thickness of an ½ a Crown piece with few bubbles in it This tasted salt and stinking as before but being dissolved at the fire or thaw'd of its self the stinking taste was gone but the saltish continued The residue in the glass within four days the season continuing and plates taken off once in 24. hours was frozen throughout but that at the bottom of the glass seem'd to have a much brisker taste then that at the top neither was it so firm and friable as that I tried another beer glass with the same water which froze most part of it but the season continued not so constantly sharp so long together as in the former experiment and therefore I could conclude nothing therefrom But in small broad earthen-pans set in ice in 36. hours the same water became ice throughout and with the addition of a parcel of ice or snow much sooner Some water was impregnated with as much bay-salt some with as much Salt Petre some with as much Sal Armoniac as the water was capable to receive and neither of these did congeal with the highest degree of cold continued six days together A solution of salt of Tartar soon converted into ice but in much longer time then common water I observed that it began to freez in a Tube at the top bottom and sides first leaving the liquor in the middle unfrozen whereas other solutions and liquors congealed uniformly by descending or ascending or both at the same time from side to side through the middle of this I made but one Trial. Salt Peter required 28. hours in a very cold season and in that time became in the open pan a most pure white ice perfectly like Sal Prunellae which an Apothecary mistook it for This ice thrown into the fire after the aqueous humidity was evaporated did sparkle as that salt useth to do A strong Lixivium made hereof with an addition of Copperas or Alume singly or mixt set in snow and salt or snow alone was froze in one night Sal Gem alone of all the salts though snow and ice were mixed with it in great proportion and though the pan was set in salt and snow could not all that time be brought to congelation an odd experiment Phlegm of Vitriol did freez sooner then the solutions before mentioned Oyl of Vitriol begins congelation or coagulation rather near as soon as fair water A pretty large Tube was fill'd ¾ full with this oyl and about ¼ thereof was frozen the rest remaining at the bottom uncongealed This Tube was broken in the presence and by the command of this Honourable society the coagulated part whereof was tasted by many then present and concluded by all those that it was a strong Vitriolate taste This coagulated part was of a paler colour then the other and both these mixed and powred into a vial-glass heated it so hot that none there could hold it This coagulated part kept so in the air a week after all my other liquors had been thaw'd and would in probability have continued so much longer had not the
glass been broken I exposed another lesser Tube with the same oyl which became frozen throughout and required very much relaxation in the air to return to its former fluidity I had set a mark on these Tubes as on all the rest to observe their several risings and the oyl of Vitriol when coagulated sunk more then half an inch below it and being dissolved at the fire returned to its first station as you also saw And this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is peculiar to this oyl alone all other liquors rising higher then the mark I now come to my stronger liquors of Beer Ale and Wines I exposed at the same time a flask of small Beer and another of strong Ale the former whereof was frozen throughout in 38. hours but three pints of the Ale continued unfrozen after six days continuance of very hard weather And the air then disposed to thawing I broke the flask and with the unfrozen liquor made an excellent mornings draught at four in the morning This Ale in colour strength and quickness seemed to me and the other three tasters that sate up with me much better then when 't was first put into the flask and by comparing it with some other in the house of the same barrel we plainly found the said difference After this I took the icy part of the Ale and thawed it at a fire which was in all a pint of liquor though the flagon containing three pints of liquor was fill'd with that ice very pale and of a quick and alish taste very much resembling that drink which the brewers call blew John This ice was not so firm as that of water but fuller of bubbles I assayed the same a second time but could not by reason of the changableness of the Weather attain so great a thickness of ice as in the former And in this also I found the same changes as before A beer-glass of Hull Ale in 24. hours contracted a crust of ice as thick as an ½ Crown and proceeding as in Sea-salt water the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were the very same all the Laminae taken off appeared of the same colour and taste and the lowest ice was the most tender Another glass of the same Ale exposed did not freez throughout no crust being taken off in five days when my own Ale did in a like glass both being set out together Now the taste and colour appeared the same or at least had no sensible difference when they had been thawed of themselves and when first exposed Hull Ale hath a brackish taste Claret very strong exposed in a spoon in 35. hours hard freezing became an ice all of it it was soft kept its former colour and taste soon discovering to the tongue of one who knew not whence it was its nature quality and kind Canary at the same time in a spoon exposed in 38. hours acquired on its surface an exceeding thin plate of ice as thin as the finest paper and proceeded no farther in four days following Neither Claret nor Canary would shew the least sign of congelation in Tubes much less in Bottles Two ounces of the best spirit of Wine exposed in an earthen pan did all evaporate in less then 12. hours but the same quantity of Brandee left near a spoonful of insipid ice without any taste of the spirit which cast into the fire flamed not at all I could discern no bubbles in this phlegmatick ice but having 〈◊〉 it betwixt mine eye and a candle it manifested many bubbles by its shadows Quaere whether this may not turn to profit in colder Countries in rectifying spirits of Wine We now come to consistent bodies and shall begin with animals and their parts Two eyes the one of an Ox the other of a Sheep in one night were both totally frozen the three humors very hard not separable one from another neither of them Diaphanous as naturally they are and the Chrystalline was as white as that of a whitings boil'd The Tunicles Fat and Muscles were also frozen as appeared by their stifness and by putting them into cold water The ice of the waterish and glassy humors seemed to be made of flakes A pint of Sheeps blood did freez at the top and all the sides of the dish wherein 't was put and was nothing else but the serum of the blood This ice being separated from the blood and thaw'd at the fire and then again exposed congealed into a seeming membranous substance and was taken for such by some that saw it and so continued in a warm season and appeared in all respects a membrane This also was seen and registred in the Journal The blood remaining gave me no signs that frost had taken it I dissected a Dog and a Cat having lain dead in the open air and found their entrails nay the very heart stiff and some little ice in the Ventricles of their hearts and their Vena Cava Milk soon freezeth into most white flakes of ice retaining the proper taste of Milk these flakes are soft and manifest not many bubbles Several Eggs were exposed and both yolk and white in one night were hard frozen They require a longer time to freez then Apples do The best way to thaw them both is to lay them on Newcastle-coal or in a deep Cellar Whether Eggs once frozen will produce Chicken or no I cannot say but have been told by good house-wives they will Some affirm that Eggs and Apples put into water the ice will be thawed within them and the ice appear on the shell and skin 'T is true if you hold either of them near the surface of the water they will soon gather a very thick crust upon their outsides but if you then break the one or cut the other you shall see them full of ice and the Eggs then poched will taste very tough So that this ice seems to be gathered from without and not to come from within And besides if it did so they must needs lose their weight the contrary whereof will anon appear But for the more surety I proceeded to this farther experiment I immersed in my Cistern an Egg and an Apple two foot deep into water and there suspended them with strings tied about them to keep them from sinking for the space of 24. hours and then took them out and opened them I could never observe in that time though I often looked at them any ice on their outsides and the one being broken and the other cut were found both of them full within of ice The next order shall be Vegetables and of them a 〈◊〉 instances 〈◊〉 of those which are of a biting or sowre taste Now for the first I employed the roots of horse-raddish and Onions for other edible roots and plants every one knows will freez which 〈◊〉 the frost had taken them by their taste and ice was found betwixt each of the skins of the Onions 〈◊〉 the taste of the root yet I have observed Beer wherein
Horse-raddish and 〈◊〉 have been infused will not 〈◊〉 so soon as other stronger Beer without them Oranges and Limons frozen have a tough and hard rind their icy juices lose much of their genuine taste they were both frozen hard in 26. hours or a little more having a thick rinde They as other fruits when thawed soon become rotten and therefore the Fruiterers keeps them under ground in low Cellars and cover them with straw as they do their Apples Which did exposed in one night freez throughout If you cut one of them through the middle 't will have on both the plains a most pure thin ice hardly discernable by the eye but easily by the touch or by scraping it off with a knife The cores of these Apples soon turn brown and begin their corruption there Oyl exposed did acquire the consistency of butter melted and cool'd again but in Caves and Cellars I could never see it more then candy Strong White-wine Vinegre did all soon freez in a Tube and without any apparent bubbles And to conclude without mentioning Nuts Bread Butter Cheese Soap and many other things which came under my trial 't is most certain that whatsoever hath any waterish humidity in it is capable of congelation what are not you have in the next Paragraph Having now done with what will freez I shall briefly recount some things whereon the cold hath no such effect We mentioned before spirit of Wine add to it such strong waters as are made of it viz. Aqua Mariae Caelestis c. and Canary Wines in larger vessels Secondly the strong Lees of Soap-boylers and others made of other salts to which refer the spirits extracted from salt Vitriol Salt Petre Aquafortis and spirit of Sulphur which last precipitated to the bottom of the Tube a small quantity of powder very like in colour to Sulphur Vivum which being separated from the spirit for nothing of that evaporated cracked between my teeth and tasted like Brimstone and being put into water made it as white as Lac Sulphuris doth but 't would not flame perhaps because too much of its strong acid spirit was mixed with it Spirit of Soot afforded also a precipitation or sediment the spirit not congealing at the bottom of the Tube of a yellowish colour but much bitterer then the spirit its self and inflamable also But here 't is to be observed that the said spirits that would not freez alone yet with the mixture of about 12. parts of water or less of ice or snow did freez throughout except the spirits of Salt of Nitre and Aqua fortis which would not freez with those quantities of water ice and snow I intended to have tried them with a greater quantity of the said ingredients but the weather failed me Whether the salt water freez in the Sea I cannot experimentally determine but shall add what was told me by one that said he had dissolved ice in the Northern Seas and found it very salt The next proposed was the figure of liquors frozen wherein I shall observe in general that most of the liquors differed one from another in their figures and being permitted to freez and thaw often they still returned to the same figure most whereof were branched Alume appeared in lumps Salt Petre Tartar milk Ale Wine and Sal Armoniac in plates and other liquors mentioned to freez into a very soft ice seeming to be made up of small globuli adhering each to other Fair water kelp and the frits resembled an oaken leaf the leafie parts being taken away and the fibres only remaining the interstitia being fill'd up with smoother ice The middle rib if I may so say as in plants was much bigger then the lateral ones all which seemed but different 〈◊〉 whose points extended towards the outside of the vessel containing the water and made acute angles with the middle rib towards the lesser end of the said leaf Concerning the figures of frozen Urine I shall say nothing the accurate description of curious Mr. Hook having so fully and truly performed that part of my task Now as to the famous experiment of Quercetan and affirmed by many other Chymists I made experiments in these following Vegetables Rosemary Rue Scurvigrass Mints and Plantane wherewith I thus proceeded I mixed with ½ a pint of their distilled waters ½ or ¾ of an ounce of their own salts the Rosemary and Rue were calcined and their salts extracted with their own waters and then were added to their salts their own distill'd waters in the above mentioned proportions The glasses wherein the Rue and Plantane were put being seal'd with Hermes seal and the other glasses left open The effect was that neither of them shewed the least resemblance of the plants from which they were extracted neither figure nor shew of roots stalks branches nor leaves but only a lump or heap of small globuli much less of flour or seed Besides the kelp frozen hath many fibres which is made the most of it of Alga Marina whose leaf is long and smooth without fibres in it This one thing I cannot pretermit that the sented waters seemed upon their thawing to have acquired and advanced much in their sents and especially the Rosemary whose salt hath no smell and its water but little yet thawed they 〈◊〉 as strong almost as fresh leaves rubb'd and smelt too A large recipient was fill'd with water which being frozen throughout and the upper crust of the ice broken there appeared in the middle of it a multitude of thin laminae of ice some more some less wide from which proceeded stiriae or teeth pointing inwards and set at pretty equal distances so that the laminae and stiriae resembled very much so many combs placed in no order some lying directly others obliquely none transversly having intervals betwixt each of them betwixt some of them I could put my finger without breaking the points of the stiriae these combs were placed round about a cavity in the middle of the receiver sufficient to receive two of my fingers In a flask filled competently with water when 't was frozen there appeared throughout the ice infinite silver-coloured bubbles very like unto tailed hail-shot of several sizes the largest about ¼ of an inch long where thickest of the bigness of a great pins-head others much less in all dimensions The points of them all looked outwards and the bigger part inwards towards the Centre where also were the largest For there they would easily admit a little pin into all their cavity without the least resistence The figures of them were pretty regular first a small thread and then a head as big as a shot and thence gradually ended in a point Some of these were straight most a little crooked There was a cavity in the centre of this ice filled with unfrozen water from which I could find multitudes of cavities of bubbles not fully formed And in the more solid parts of the ice cut you may discern them
falling as the received opinion of Philosophers asserts 10. Snow abounds with fat This I understand not 11. Snow with ice swims on water This is a clear consequence from the seventh assertion 12. Snow-water boils meat sooner and makes the flesh whiter I tried this in flesh and fish but could find no manifest difference either to their sooner boiling or whiteness 13. Snow newly fallen hath no taste but lying long on the ground or frozen somewhat bites the tongue My taste was not so acute as to distinguish the biting of one from the other T is true indeed that snow frozen doth more affect the tongue with its coldness then snow alone 14. Worms are sometimes found in snow This neither my own observation nor relation from others can make out 15. From snow by a peculiar art a salt of wonderful strength is drawn He saith not this of his own observation nor teacheth the way to extract it 16. After much snow plenty of Nuts This frequently suits with the Country-mans observation but many times fails such years also commonly produce plenty of Wheat other seasons concurring I shall here also insert two remarks out of the same Authors concerning freezing The one is that the great Duke of Tuscany distilled spirit from Wine only by putting snow upon the Alembick without help of fire The second that the Duke of Mantua had a powder which soon congealed water into ice even in the Summer And to conclude take these general observations made by the command of the Royal Society with Weather-glasses fram'd after the Italian mode and fill'd in part with tinged spirit of Wine Which I shall deliver briefly and in gross and not each days alteration apart I took then two of the said glasses of equal dimensions as near as might be and fill'd them with the same spirit of Wine one of them I placed in my Study-window standing North-west the other in Mr. Pulleyns Warehouse under St. Pauls-Church and chose there a small recess or room which was most remote from the entrance and the warmest in the whole Warehouse both the glasses were setled in their stations the 15. of October 1662. the spirit in both having the altitude of three inches just When the glass in my Study was depress'd by the cold an inch I went and observed that in the Warehouse to have received no manifest change in its station And at a second visit the spirit was depressed ¼ of an inch below when that above-ground was depressed near two inches And during the long continuance of all that hard Winter it never descended above ¾ of an inch and never was higher there then three inches and ¼ in a mild season in April following by which time the papers fixed to the glass and whereon were fixed the degrees was quite rotten and the characters scarcely legible And at the same time that in my Study was raised to four inches ¾ By which it appears that the said Warehouse was in the coldest season as warm as in a mild March for at that station the glass in my Study stood commonly betwixt two inches and 2. and ½ And so indeed this place appeared to one that went into it at the coldest season And to this purpose I several times sent in at night my hardest frozen liquors which were constantly thawed in the morning though it freezed exceeding hard above ground The glass in my Study after two days hard freezing was sunk below my marks into the very ball so that I could make no farther observations concerning the cold above ground From the former observations that popular error is manifestly refuted viz. that Cellars and Subterraneous places are hotter in the Winter then in the Summer which though they appear so to us because they warm us in the Winter and cool us in the Summer yet they are not so in themselves for it appears by the former Experiment that in the coldest season the spirit was depressed to two inches and ¼ and rose in April to 3 ½ and no doubt would have risen about ¾ of an inch higher had it continued there till the hottest season of the year One thing more I observed viz. that the tinged spirit of Wine had in this subterraneous Vault totally lost its colour whereas that in my Study two years after still retains its former tincture Since the printing of the foregoing Papers viz. 1664. there being no frosts in England 1663. I made these following Experiments Finding the third of January the season disposed to freezing I exposed a Pint bottle of Claret and a glassCane filled with Canary a solution of Sal Gem Train-oyl and the Oyl of Fructus musae and on the fourth of the same month the night being the coldest and sharpest that I ever felt which all I spake with the next day confirmed the wind then blowing hard at South-west I found in the morning all the liquors frozen except the Sal Gem exposed in an earthen pan which shewed at the bottom of the dish some seemingly Crystallized salt the oyl of the said fruit became very friable and of a milky white colour but the Train-oyl only lost its fluidity and became of the consistence of soft greese And the same night a bottle of the Rhenish Wine called Backrag and another of lusty White-wine standing in a room a story high exposed to the said wind had most of the Wine frozen in them the ices whereof being taken out tasted somewhat weaker then the Wine it self All the same things happened the sixth night of the same month It is to be observed that the pint of Claret and the Sack in the tube were both frozen throughout these two nights and after their double freezing and thawing they lost nothing of their spirit colour and taste nay the Claret being a strong Burgundy Wine though it often suffered glaciation and thawing for three weeks together yet in all that time suffered no manifest alteration but appeared the same to sence as when it was exposed in colour taste and strength As to the concentration of coloured liquors Mr. Haak shewed me an Oval glass having at one end a narrow Cane above an inch long almost filled with water tinged with Cochineel frozen throughout the ice round about towards the sides of the glass shewed wholly colourless but that in the midst was of an exceeding high dye but the ice that was raised to the neck of the glass was lightly tinged with a scarlet hue Hereupon having some flasks by me I put into one a strong decoction of Cochineel and into another a like decoction of Soot which being exposed to the air and incompassed in a vessel with snow and salt they did freez to the thickness of an inch or more and the air then beginning to relax I broke the flasks and the desolved ice yielded a water totally colourless I made also an Experiment with a very strong decoction of Gentian roots which being exposed in a four ounce vial the ice thereof had
a far deeper colour and bitterer taste in the middle and towards the bottom then towards the outsides of it And whereas Barclay relates that King James being in Denmark to fetch his Queen thence in the Winter season had his nose and ears in danger of Gangreening which being timely perceived by some of the King of Denmarks Nobility they caused the parts to be rubbed with snow and so the danger was avoided the same travellers affirm that in the Northern parts where men become stiff with cold and almost frozen to death that they rub the frozen parts with snow or else cast the whole body into water by which means the whole body is crusted over with ice as Eggs and Apples are as if the freezing Atoms did pass from the body frozen into the water or snow and this way of curing Gangreens from cold Sennertus doth prescribe To make some Experiment hereof I exposed flesh and fish and found that by immersing them into water they soon became more limber and flexible and more easily yielding to the knife and compassed with a crust of ice of the thickness of about half a crown manifest tokens of their thawing and being cut they discovered nothing of ice in them This for more certainty I often reiterated as also in Eggs and Apples above a dozen times and never failed of unthawing them by this way 'T is to be noted if you immerse the flesh fish eggs or apples deep into the water no ice will appear on their outsides but only when you hold them neer the surface of the water As to the Persian Experiment mentioned by Olearius of making huge heaps of ice to be preserved for cooling of their drinks I observed that by pouring water into an open Pan or into a Flask gradually some at one time some at another I could quickly freez by this way a whole Flaskfull when near half of a Flask filled at one though helped by art was unfrozen I observed also that the ditches betwixt Southwark and Redderiff had acquired an exceeding thickness of ice caused by the flowing of the water in them at full Tide for new water being brought in by the Tide was there congeal'd to the thickness of some inches every ebbing and flowing I observed also the ice on the banks of Thames above two yards thick the inhabitants told me they had seen it three or four yards thick which thus came to pass the Tide flowing in and meeting with great flakes of ice drove them to the banks and lodged them on the ice there frozen which flakes uniting there with the former ice raised it to that excessive height or thickness Besides every one may observe in London Streets and elsewhere in Chanels where no constant current is that water coming from the houses soon fill the Chanels with thick ice for running but a little at a time it freezeth almost as fast as it cometh thither Nay I have seen ice of some yards thickness in such places where a small rill or stream of water gently falls on the side of a hill Amongst those things that will freez Mortar and Plaister of Paris were omitted and thence 't is that Plaisterers and Bricklayers play all the Winter My Lord Verulam in his natural History and some from him have affirmed to me that Apples and Eggs covered with a wet cloath will not freez but I find no difference in those that are thus covered and them that are not Add to those that sink upon congelation all oyls from Animals and from Vegetables that are extracted by expression or boiling Add to those that freez not water and Sugar boiled to the consistence of a Syrup and also all other Syrups none whereof I could ever take notice or learn by others that they would freez 'T is true that water having an equal quantity of Sugar dissolved in it will freez but with a little more mixed therewith freezeth not To try the effect of cold upon Loadstones I exposed several of them in the open Air and also within rooms in the most severe weather the needle being kept in a warm place At other times I exposed the needle to the cold air keeping the stones warm at other times both were exposed but in none of my Experiments could I conclude any thing certain to their attractive faculty for the sphere of their activity was found to be sometimes greater and sometimes less to a considerable difference in ten several good stones imployed for this purpose I essayed also to find out a standard of cold whereby to fit the tinged spirit of Wine for the Weather-glasses and to that end made use of Conduit water and the distilled waters of Plantane Poppies Black-Cherry Nightshade Scurvigrass and Horse-raddish all which were first placed in the same room where a fire was kept and then removed and measured out into spoons in equal quantities and also a drop of them dropt on the same bench but though this was often tried I could not make any sure inference from them only I observed that the black-Cherry water did for the most part freez first but the other with very great uncertainty The Horse-raddish and Scurvigrass waters were for the most part froze last The best way to discover the very beginning of freezing of liquors is to move a Pin or Needle through the liquors whereby the ice will be raised and become discernable when the naked eye can discover none at all FINIS Figure 1. Page 9 10 11 â— 98. A the Ball or Egg. B C the Stem D the little Aqueous Cylinder Figure 2. the open Weather glass mentioned pag. 24 43 Figure 3. the seal'd Weather-glass or Thermoscopâ—mentioned pag. 24 55 56. Figure 4. the Barometer oâ— Mercurial Standard placed in Frame B B mentioned pag. 25 Figure 5. an Instrumenâ— mentioned pag. 93. A the Vial. B C the Pipe cemented in t the neck of the Vial open at â— and seal'd at B. Figure 6. pag. 97. A the Bolt-head B the small Stem B C the Cylinder of wateâ— inclos'd Figure 7. pag. 101. * It was thought needless to insert Mr. Hobs's Scheme touching this subject because it only shews that Wind is the cause of Cold. Sceptical Chymist * Chapter the fifth of that Treatise * The two Essays of the Unsuccesfulness of Experiments * Another remarkable instance of the variable success of the Experiments of Cold I 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with in an Experiment 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 Dr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 of oyl of 〈◊〉 For though I 〈◊〉 that Liquor in smal ' vessels of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 of the Air in 〈◊〉 nights 〈◊〉 extraordinarily sharp 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is more our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Salt would 〈◊〉 the Experiment succeed 〈◊〉 that we tri'd it with several parcels of Oyl of Vitriol And yet that the Learned Doctor by the help of the Air alone for he uses not our 〈◊〉 mixture did bring that Liquor either to
he inform'd me that it was their usual way to turn water and snow into ice by pouring a convenient Proportion of that liquor into a great quantity of snow and having also inquir'd 〈◊〉 ice had not the like operation he told 〈◊〉 that t was usual and he had seen it practis'd in 〈◊〉 to cement Ice to Buildings and other things and also to case over Bodies as it were with Ice by gradually throwing water upon them But I doubt whether that Effect be to be ascrib'd barely to the Contiguity of the Ice because I learn'd of him that this way of increasing ice is practis'd in very frosty weather when water thinly spread upon almost any other Body would be frozen by the vehement sharpness of the Air. 7. The Glaciations that nature unguided by Art is wont to make beginning at those parts of Bodies at which they are expos'd to the Air it usually happens that they freez from the upper towards the lower parts But how far in Earth and Water the most considerable Bodies that are subject to be frozen the frost will pierce downwards though for some hints it would afford worth the knowing is not easie to be defin'd because the deepness of the frost may be much varied by the degree of Coldness in the Air by which the Glaciation seems to be produc'd as also by the greater or 〈◊〉 Duration of the frost by the looser or closer texture of the Earth by the nature of the Juices wherewith the Earth is imbu'd and by the constitution of the subjacent and more internal parts of the Earth some of which send up either actually warm or potentially hot and resolving steams such as those that make corrosive liquors in the bowels of the Earth so that the frost will not seiz upon or at least cannot continue over Mines and I have seen good large scopes of land where vast quantities of good Lime-stone lay near the surface of the Earth on which I have been assur'd by the Inhabitants that the snow will not lye There are divers other things that may vary the depth to which the frost can penetrate into the ground I say into the ground because in most cases it will pierce deeper into the water But yet that we may not leave this part of the History of Cold altogether uncontributed to we will add some of our Notes whereby it will appear that in our Climate the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 less into the ground then many are pleas'd to think 8. The notes I find about this matter are these that follow which I 〈◊〉 unaltered because 't were tedious and not worth while to add the way we imploy'd and the cautions we us'd in making the observations but we shall rather intimate that the following trials were made in a Village about two miles from a great City I. Jan. 22. After four nights of frost that was taken notice of for very hard we went into an Orchard where the ground was level and not covered with grass and found by digging that the frost had scarce pierc'd into the ground three inches and a half And in a Garden nearer the house we found not the Earth to be frozen more then two inches beneath its surface II. Nine or ten nights successive frost froze the grasless ground in the Garden about six inches and a half or better in depth and the grasless ground in the Orchard where a wall 〈◊〉 it from the south Sun to the 〈◊〉 of about eight inches and a half or better February the 9. we digg'd in an Orchard near a wall that respects the North and found the frost to have 〈◊〉 the ground 〈◊〉 a foot and two inches at least above a foot 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the eight day since it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inches and a half A slender pipe of glass about 18. inches long and seal'd at one end was thrust over night into a hole purposely made with a Spit straight down into the ground the 〈◊〉 of the water being in the same level with that of the Earth the next morning the Tube being taken out the water appear'd frozen in the whole Capacity of the Cylinder but a little more then three inches But from this stick of ice there reach'd downwards a part of a Cylinder of ice of about six inches in length the rest of the water remain'd 〈◊〉 though it were an exceeding sharp night preceded by a Constitution of the Air that had been very lasting and very bitter The Earth in the Garden where this Trial was made we guess'd to be frozen eight or ten inches deep as it was in another place about the same house But is this Tube had not been in the ground the ambient Air would have frozen it quite through 9. Another Note much of the same import we find in another place of our Collections Finding that by reason of the mildness of our Climate I was scarce to hope for any much deeper Congelation of the Earth or Water I appli'd my self to inquire of an Ingenious Man that had been at Musco whether he had observed any thing there to my present purpose as also to find in Captain James's Voyage whether that inquisitive Navigator had taken notice of any thing that might inform me how far the Cold was able to freeze the Earth or Water in the Island of Charleton where that Quality may probably be supposed to have had as large a sphere of Activity as in almost any part of the habitable world And by my Inquiries I 〈◊〉 that even in frozen Regions themselves a congealing degree of Cold pierces nothing near so deep into the Earth and Sea as one would imagine For the Traveller I spoke with told me that in a Garden in Musco where he took notice of the thing I inquir'd about he found not the ground to be frozen much above two foot deep And in Captain James's Journal the most that I find and that too where he gives an Account of the prodigiously tall ice they had in January concerning the piercing of the frost into the ground is this that The ground at tenfoot deep was frozen Whence by the way we may gather how much sharper Cold may be presum'd to have reigned in that Island then even in Russia And as for the freezing of the water He does in another place occasionally give us this memorable Account of it where He relates the manner of the breaking up the Ice in the frozen Sea that surrounds the Island we have been speaking of It is first to be noted says he that it doth not freez naturally above six foot the rest is by accident such is that Ice that you may see here six fathome thick This we had manifest proof of by our digging the Ice out of the Ship and by digging to our Anchors before the Ice broke up The rest of that account not concerning our present purpose I forbear to annex only taking notice that notwithstanding our lately mention'd Experiment of freezing water in
that which makes mainly for my present purpose beginning contrary to vulgar thaws from the bottom upwards 50. And having thus manifested that the lower parts of the Earth do send up great store of Exhalations and Vapours to the upper parts it will be obvious to conceive that as in divers places of the Terrestrial Globe these steams get into the Air either by the advantage of finding vents such as those I have already mentioned or by growing copious enough to force themselves a passage So in most other places where the ascending steams find no commodious vents or are too faintly driven up to gain themselves a passage they must be repress'd or detain'd beneath the surface of the Earth which has its pores in Winter usually choak'd up with snow or rain or its surface constipated and hardened with ice or frost so that these exhalations being pent up and receiving fresh supplies from time to time from beneath 't were no wonder if they should somewhat warm deep Cellars and Wells where they are thus detain'd and therefore our Husbandmen do not speak altogether so improperly when they say that the snow keeps the ground warm And I remember that Dr. Smith the learned English 〈◊〉 into Musco makes it to be one of the principal reasons of the great fertility he justly ascribes to the Country there about that during almost all the Winter the ground is to a great height covered with snow which does not only inrich it by the fertilizing salt which the Earth gains from the snow when that comes to be melted but does also contribute to its improvement by choaking up or obstructing the pores at which the Nitro-sulphureous and other useful Corpuscles that are sent up by the 〈◊〉 heat would easily get away And least Gentlemen you should think that 't is only by the Ratiocination that I conclude that there is really great store of warm steams detain'd under ground in the Winter I shall add this sensible observation receiv'd from the Russian Emperors Physician already often mention'd by whom I have been assured that about Musco where the surface of the ground is far more constipated in Winter this 't is in these parts and where they are wont to keep their Cellars much closer the subterraneous Exhalations being hinder'd to fly abroad will in time multiply so fast that he assures me that upon the unwary opening of the doors of Cellars that have been long kept shut there would sally out a warm smoak and very thick almost like that of a furnace and sometimes the steam that issues out will be so gross and plentiful that it has brought men into danger of being suffocated by it 51. And now Gentlemen having shown that though Experience be so confidently appeal'd to by the maintainers of Antiperistasis yet she has not hitherto afforded them any thing that much favours their Cause it remains that I show that she bears witness against it For besides that some passages of my late Discourses do really contain Phaenomena that not only do not favour Antiperistasis but may justly be imploy'd as Experiments against it I shall ex abundanti as they speak present you with something which I necessitated Experience to supply me with that seems expresly to overthrow it 52. I might urge against those who though they begin to be asham'd of the Doctrine of the Schools would establish an Antiperistasis upon the account of what they call a fuga Contrarii that the very instance they are wont to bring for their opinion may be retorted upon them For when they tell us that in Winter the heat to fly the cold of the external Air retires it self into the lower parts of the Earth and there harbours in Cellars and Wells as may be prov'd by the smoaking of water drawn from deep Wells which argues its heat the vapours which fly away being as vapours hot in comparison of the outward Air we may easily answer by demanding why if the heat that was harbour'd in a smoaking Bucket of water have the wit or instinct to fly from its Contrary it does not in the Bucket as 't is said to do in the Well retire it self as far as it can from the surrounding cold of the ambient Air but instead of retiring to the innermost parts of the water those being remotest from that it needlesly flies abroad with the vapours it excites and does as it were of its own accord cast it self into the arms of the enemies it should shun And indeed what I just now mention'd to you as related to me by the great Duke of Muscovies Physician does sufficiently manifest that the cause why the Corpuscles that keep Cellars warm abide beneath the surface of the Earth in Winter is not that they fly the cold as their enemy but that they are pent up beneath the ground since when vent is given them they immediately rush into the open Air without fearing the cold even of Russia in the very midst of Winter 53. But I shall press this no further but rather add that the doctrine of Antiperistasis is as little beholding to the following Experiment which I sometimes tri'd in order to the disabusing some Abetters of Themistius I took then an Iron-rod of about the bigness of a mans finger having at one end of it a very broad and thick piece of Iron shap'd almost like a spattule that the quantity of the matter might upon the ignition of the Iron make the heat very considerable then having caus'd this thick end to be made red hot in the fire and having suddenly quench'd it in cold water I could not perceive that the other end of the rod by which it was wont to be held did at all grow sensibly hot as a favourer of Antiperistasis would have expected it should do to a very high degree as presuming that the innumerable particles of heat that swarmed in the compact body of the red hot part of the Iron must to fly the cold of the water retire in throngs towards the other extreme of the Iron and make it exceedingly hot And least any preexistent warmth should hinder me from perceiving an increase of heat in case any were produc'd in the handle of the Iron I caus'd it the next time the Trial was made to be kept in cold water and yet even then the immersion of the broad and candent end into the cold water brought as little of sensible heat to the other end that I held in my hand as it had done the time before and having caus'd the Experiment to be tri'd by another the account I receiv'd was that it succeeded with him as it had done with me 54. But this is not the main thing Gentlemen that I intended to acquaint you with there being an Expedient that I purposely devised to make one Experiment more considerable against Antiperistasis then are the several mistaken observations of the Peripetaticks to establish it 55. I took then a good seal'd Weather-glass 12. or