A correspondent of the "Magazine of Natural History," in endeavouring to explain the causes why water freezes at the bottom in rapid streams, says this unusual phenomenon may be rationally accounted for by anyone who has attended to it; that the streams in which anchor frosts occur generally are those which contain water of different temperatures—viz., surface-drainage and land springs and main springs, the first being always colder than the latter, in winter these never being less than 40 degrees, even in severe frosts.
These colder globules being first frozen, float on the surface of the water individually, being prevented from coalescing by the intermediate main-spring-water, and where the water passes in a shallow stream over the pebbles the crystals are intercepted by the interstices of the stones, and then become heaped together in thick beds.
The fact of the crystals of ice (which are specifically lighter than the water) sinking below the surface, is a circumstance requiring explanation. They do not sink from their specific gravity, but in the commotion of the current they are occasionally submerged, and while so are stopped by any obstruction, when they commence and compose the aggregation.
Thinking this was an erroneous view of the matter, I replied as follows:—
J. M., in his remarks on anchor frosts, appears to me to have fallen into several errors in endeavouring to account for them (they are called bottom frosts in Yorkshire); for, admitting that main springs are of the temperature stated (40 degrees) when they issue from the earth, I am by no means prepared to believe that they keep that temperature long, or that the water issuing from them does not mingle intimately and immediately with the water of the river into which it flows; especially in the situations where anchor frosts are most common, which are rough and rapid streams.
From J. M.'s statement it would appear that globules of water of different temperatures mix together without the one imparting its excess of caloric to the other, which is contrary to the experience of everyone; it is true, that in still places there will be different temperatures in the same body of water, but it is not owing to the main springs of which J. M. speaks, but to the peculiar way in which water is affected by cold. It is well known that water increases in density down to 40 degrees, below which temperature it begins to expand, and this expansion continues until it reaches the freezing-point, so that in severe frosts there will be strata of different temperatures from 32 degrees to 40 degrees. Again, he says that "the crystals of ice are intercepted by the interstices of the stones, and then become heaped together in thick beds;" but if my observations are correct, these depositions begin first round the large stones, which are not likely to stop small spiculae any more than are the water-gates of mills, where, he says, the accumulations also take place.
Anchor frosts are most common in the rapid streams occurring below deeps in rivers, and I have seen a weir on the river Wharfe which had a wall of ice four feet high formed upon it in a single night by a sharp north wind. In my opinion a sufficient explanation of this freezing at the bottom of rivers is to be found in the fact that water when kept still may be cooled down below the freezing- point without being congealed; but if the vessel in which it is kept be shaken, a portion of it will be converted into a porous, spongy ice, and the temperature immediately rises to 32 degrees. In the deeps of rivers the same cooling below the freezing-point takes place without congelation, but as soon as this water reaches the stream below, the agitation immediately converts a portion of it into ice, which collects round the large stones at the bottom in the same way that crystallization commences in a solution of salt or sugar around a piece of thread or other substance which may be suspended in it. If a severe frost is followed by a bright day, thousands of these detached pieces of spongy ice may be seen rising from the stones which have served as nuclei for them; which proves that the detention of them is not merely mechanical, but that precipitation (if I may be allowed to call it so) takes place in the first instance, the stone serving as a nucleus, and that this adhesion is destroyed by the action of the sun's rays.
I have never seen any attempt to explain the phenomenon of bottom- frosts before this of J. M.'s, and I am not philosopher enough to speak positively on the subject; but the above is the way in which I have always endeavoured to account for it. Perhaps some of your scientific readers may be able to give much better reasons for it than have been offered either by J. M. or myself. (January 17th, 1832.)
Another writer (J. Carr, of Alnwick,) says that anchor frosts are merely long and severe ones where long masses of ice are frozen to the stones at the bottom of rapid streams, and this is simply owing to these stones acquiring a degree of cold far below the freezing-point, and the water in contact with them freezing and spreading into large sheets of ice, which are sometimes torn up and carry away the gravel adhering to the under surface.
Thinking that this was an error, I again wrote to the "Magazine of
Natural History" as below:—