Abstract
THE author points out that metals and alloys may be maintained in a fluid state at temperatures which are many degrees below their true freezing points, and states that this fact has been but little studied. As regards salts, the question of surfusion has recently received much attention. Ostwald (Zeit.für Physikal. Chem. 1897, vol. xxii. p. 3) has shown, as the result of an investigation of great interest, that a very minute quantity of a solid will cause a mass of the same substance to pass from the surfused to the solid state. His work, moreover, has led him to distinguish between the meta-stable, or ordinary condition in which surfusion takes place, and the labile condition which occurs at temperatures much below the melting point. Ostwald's paper, and one by M. Brillouin (Ann. de Chim. et de Phys., 1898, vol. xiii. p. 264), on the theory of complete and pasty fusion, led the author to offer the Royal Society the results of his own experiments on the surfusion of metals.
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Surfusion in Metals and Alloys1. Nature 58, 619–621 (1898). https://doi.org/10.1038/058619f0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/058619f0