[2] There is a very singular exception in regard to iron itself, in this respect. It is only a certain degree of heat that expands this metal; (and that much less than any other either more or less dense) when melted, it occupies a less space than when in a solid form. This ought to caution us against an entire dependence on general rules, by which nature doth not appear to be wholly restricted. See Mem. de l’Acad. des Scienc. p. 273.
[3] See Dr. Lewis’s Philosophical Commerce of Arts, p. 42.
[4] See Martine’s Dissertation on Heat. What the degree of cold was which fixed mercury at St. Petersburg, I do not recollect.
[5] It requires seven or eight days. (See Dissertation sur la glace par Mons. de Mayran.) Paris edition, 1749. Page 191.
[6] Lately, indeed, by such intense cold as can only be procured with the greatest art, and in the coldest climates, mercury is said to have been stagnated, or fixed.
[7] By Dr. Hales’s experiments made for discovering the proportion of air generated from different bodies, it appears that raisin wine, absorbed, in fermenting, a quantity of air equal to nearly one third of its volume; and ale, under the like circumstances, absorbed one fifth.
[8] In the northern part of England, the usual time of steeping barley in the cistern is about 80 hours.
40 bushels of barley wetted 1 hour, will guage then in the couch 40 bushels, that is, if drained from its exterior moisture.
| 40 bushels | —— | 20 hours, | —— | —— | 42½ bushels. |
| 40 bushels | —— | 40 hours, | —— | —— | 45 bushels. |
| 40 bushels | —— | 60 hours, | —— | —— | 47½ bushels. |
| 40 bushels | —— | 80 hours, | —— | —— | 50 bushels. |
Here the barley is supposed to be fully saturated with the water; and these 40 bushels of barley, guaged (after 80 hours wetting in the cistern) in the couch, will be 50 bushels; but when again guaged on the floor, from the effect of the roots, and sometimes the shoots, occasioning the corn to lie hollow, here the 40 bushels of barley will shew as 80 bushels. Vide Ramsbottom, page 113, &c.