"But without insisting on the improbability of this supposition, we have only to recollect that from the results of actual and decisive experiments, made for the express purpose of ascertaining that fact, the capacity for heat for the metal of which great guns are cast is _not sensibly changed_ by being reduced to the form of metallic chips, and there does not seem to be any reason to think that it can be much changed, if it be changed at all, in being reduced to much smaller pieces by a borer which is less sharp." He next surrounded his cylinder by an oblong deal-box, in such a manner that the cylinder could turn water-tight in the centre of the box, while the borer was pressed against the bottom of the cylinder. The box was filled with water until the entire cylinder was covered, and then the apparatus was set in action. The temperature of the water on commencing was 60 deg.. "The result of this beautiful experiment," writes Rumford, "was very striking, and the pleasure it afforded me amply repaid me for all the trouble I had had in contriving and arranging the complicated machinery used in making it. The cylinder had been in motion but a short time, when I perceived, by putting my hand into the water, and touching the outside of the cylinder, that heat was generated. "At the end of one hour the fluid, which weighed 18.77 pounds, or two and one-half gallons, had its temperature raised forty-seven degrees, being now 107 deg.. "In thirty minutes more, or one hour and thirty minutes after the machinery had been set in motion, the heat of the water was 142 deg.. "At the end of two hours from the beginning, the temperature was 178 deg.. "At two hours and twenty minutes it was 200 deg., and at two hours and thirty minutes it _actually boiled_!" "It would be difficult to describe the surprise and astonishment expressed in the countenances of the bystanders on seeing so large a quantity of water heated, and actually made to boil, without any fire. Though, there was nothing that could be considered very surprising in this matter, yet I acknowledge fairly that it afforded me a degree of childish pleasure which, were I ambitious of the reputation of a grave philosopher, I ought most certainly rather to hide than to discover." He then carefully estimates the quantity of heat possessed by each portion of his apparatus at the conclusion of the experiment, and, adding all together, finds a total sufficient to raise 26.58 pounds of ice-cold water to its boiling point, or through 180 deg. Fahrenheit. By careful calculation, he finds this heat equal to that given out by the combustion of 2,303.8 grains (equal to four and eight-tenths ounces troy) of wax.