Abstract
QUITE firmly entrenched in scientific literature, including some very recent English histories of science, is the statement that Sir Humphry Davy contrived a clockwork by which two pieces of ice were rubbed together and made to melt under the exhausted receiver of an air-pump. This is incorrect. A reference to Davy's works (Davy, “Collected Works,” vol. 2, 1839, p. 11, 12, “Experiment II.” and “Experiment III.”) indicates that in one experiment he melted ice at 29° F., by friction, in the open, and that in another experiment he caused wax to melt by friction of two metals (wheel and plate) in a vacuum. Davy did not melt ice by rubbing together pieces of ice in a vacuum.
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