The Density and Coefficient of Cubical Expansion of Ice

Abstract

There are perhaps no subjects in the domain of experimental physics which call more urgently for attention, than investigations into the properties of water in its various states of aggregation. And of the various points which still need study, the latent heat of fusion is without doubt the most pressing. The method which promises to yield a reliable result for this determination, requires a knowledge of the density of ice at 0° C. The Bunsen Ice Calorimeter has, in the hands of Dieterici and other Continental physicists, recently become an instrument of precision, but the results which this apparatus is capable in itself of yielding, are unavailable to Science owing to the lack of an accurate knowledge of the density and latent heat of ice.