Ice at High Temperatures

Abstract

FROM Mr. Hannay's letter (NATURE, vol. xxii. p. 483) and from private communications I have received it appears there has been a little misconception as to the manner in which I judged of the temperature of the ice in the experiment referred to in NATURE, ibid., 435. Mr. Hannay's theory, that the ice was protected from the hot glass by an intervening layer of vapour, at first occurred to myself and to others as the true explanation of the phenomenon, but that this explanation will not serve in the present case is, I think, proved by the fact that a thermometer was imbedded in the ice and rose to temperatures varying in different experiments between 120° and 180° C., at which points the ice had either all volatilised or had become detached from the bulb. This appears improbable from our present ideas concerning latent heat, but it is nevertheless a fact. If I can make the necessary arrangements it is my intention to show the experiment at an early meeting of the Chemical Society, when it will be open to criticism.