I. On recent theories and experiments regarding ice at or near its melting-point

Abstract

My object in the following paper is to discuss briefly the bearings of some of the leading theories of the plasticity and other properties of ice at or near its melting-point, on speculations on the same subject advanced by myself, and, especially, to offer an explanation of an experiment made by Professor James D. Forbes, which to him and others has seemed to militate against the theory proposed by me, but which, in reality, I believe to be in perfect accordance with that theory. In the year 1850, Mr. Faraday invited attention, in a scientific point of view, to the fact that two pieces of moist ice, when placed in contact, will unite together, even when the surrounding temperature is such as to keep them in a thawing state. He attributed this phenomenon to a property which he supposed ice to possess, of tending to solidify water in contact with it, and of tending more strongly to solidify a film or a particle of water when the water has ice in contact with it on both sides than when it has ice on only one side.