LXXX. A remark concerning the sex of holly

Abstract

jP. & It is now feveral years fince I firft obferv’d the very confiderable expanfion of the femimetallic fubftance call’d zink, [pelter, or tootanag; and propos’d it as more fit for the purpofe of making compound pendulums, and me­ talline thermometers, than brafs 5 as its expan­ fion feem’d confiderably greater, and its confid­ ence, when gently hammer’d, not much inferior. W ith the fame view I have made trial of feveral other metallic compofition*, befides what is above fet dow n; but they all prov’d much inferior to zink in expanfion, and mod of them in con­ fidence. It feems, that metals obferve a quite different pro­ portion o f expanfion in a fluid, to what they do in a folid ftate: For regulus of antimony feem’d to fhrink in fixing, after being melted, confider­ ably more than zink.