Deerfield, June 3d, 1818.
Sir,
Since I sent you a description of a singular disruption in the earth in this town, another has been observed in the same meadows, about one mile from the former. This is less than the one of which I sent you an account, but its situation is almost exactly similar; it being on a small elevation, on the sides of which, at a few rods distant, is low wet ground. Indeed, the general description which I sent you will answer for this smaller disruption. The diameters of this last, are only 7 and 8 paces, and the curve is not perfect. There appears to have been an expansion of the earth's surface around both these spots, or disruptions, by which it was forced to give way at the point where there was the least resistance, which, of course, would be on the highest ground. The more I observe of this phenomenon, the more I am inclined to impute it to the agency of frost.
It may be proper to observe, that in neither of these disruptions has the general mass of the hills sunk in the least. Had this been the case, it might perhaps have accounted for them. It is also certain, that the soil below where it was frozen the past winter, has not been moved. I mentioned this fact in my first communication, though with some suggested doubt.
REMARKS.
An opinion having been requested by Mr. Hitchcock on the above facts, it may be observed, that there appears in the statement sufficient evidence that the phenomenon (as the author has suggested) is attributable to frost.
It is a fact, established equally by common experience and by numerous experiments, that water, in freezing, expands. It is generally estimated that 8 cubic inches of water, become 9 by the act of congealing. The expansion is attributed, with sufficient evidence, to a crystalline arrangement arising from a kind of polarity in the particles of water exerted when they are near congealing, by which they attract one another in certain points, and not in others. Dr. Black, with his usual felicity, has illustrated this tendency, by supposing a great number of small magnetized needles, thrust through corks, so that they will float parallel to the surface of water, to be thrown promiscuously into a vessel of that fluid. They will not remain in the situation in which they are thrown in, but, in consequence of their polarity, attractions and repulsions will be immediately exerted; they will rush together, with a force equal to the overcoming of a certain resistance; they will arrange themselves in pairs and groups, and finally, in a connected assemblage.
The particles of water attract each other with a prodigious force, when resistance is opposed; for it is well known that domestic utensils, trees, rocks, and even cannon, and bomb-shells, are burst with explosion, when water confined within them is frozen.