Page:Experimental researches in chemistry and.djvu/390

1858.] 40°, or the maximum density, and the part above at progressive temperatures from 40° upwards to 32°; each stratum keeping its place by its relative specific gravity to the rest, and having therefore, in that respect, no tendency to form currents either upwards or downwards. Now generally, if the surface became ice, the water below would go on freezing by the cold conducted downwards through the ice; but the successive series of temperatures from 32° to 40° would always exist in a layer of water contained between the ice and the dense water at 40° below M. If the water were pure, no action of the cold would tend to change the places of the particles of the Water or cause currents; because the lower the cold descended, the more firmly would any given particle tend to retain its place above those beneath it: a particle at e, for instance, at 36° Fahr., would, when the cold had frozen what was above it, be cooled sooner and more than any of the particles beneath, and so always retain its upper place as respects them.

But now, suppose the water to contain a trace of saline matter in solution. As the water at 32° froze, either at the surface or against the bottom of the previously-formed ice, these salts would be expelled; for the ice first formed (and that always formed, if the proper care be taken to displace the excluded salts) is perfectly free from them, and. The salts so excluded would pass into the layer of water beneath, and there produce two effects: they would make that layer of greater specific gravity than before, and so give it a tendency to sink into the warmer under layer; but they would also make it require a lower temperature than 32° for congelation; this it would acquire from the cold ice above, and by that it would become lighter and float, tending to remain uppermost; for it has already been shown that the diminution of temperature below 32° in sea water and solution of salts, is accompanied by the same enlargement of bulk as between 32° and 40° with pure water. The stratum of water, therefore, below the ice, would not of necessity sink because it contained a little more salt than the stratum immediately below it; and certainly would not if the increase of gravity conferred by the salts was less than the decrease by lowering of temperature. An approximation of the strata between the freezing place and the layer at 40° would occur, i. e. the