Explanation of the Fact that Watery Bodies When They Freeze Increase in Volume with an Enormous Force

Abstract

To crown the work we shall attempt, from the theory presented above, to explain a strange problem: why do water alone and other fluids participating in the nature of water such as wine, animal and plant humours, not constrict as a result of intense cold and why are they not reduced to less volume as occurs with the other hard, soft and fluid bodies? They actually increase in volume, i.e. they rarefy, and this with an enormous force. Since in the common language density is not distinguished from hardness and fluid bodies are thought to be rarer than dense and hard ones, some people are easily convinced that, whenever a fluid body such as water hardens and acquires the consistency of ice, it is condensed by the force of cold but not actually rarefied. The difference between rarefaction and condensation is that in the former little material or material substance occupies much space whereas in the latter more material substance fills a smaller and more restricted space. Obviously all bodies, hard as well as fluid, rarefy and acquire more fluidity by the action and force of heat and fire. On the contrary, they condense and harden by the action of cold. Therefore, it seems absolutely impossible to people that the greatest and most intense action of cold which is freezing must produce a characteristic which is proper to heat. Therefore, they deny that frozen water must be rarefied.