Before applying our new ideas to skating, I want you to notice a fact which I have inferentially stated, but not specifically mentioned. Pressure will only lead to the melting of ice if the new melting point, _i.e._ that due to the pressure, is below the prevailing temperature. Let us take figures. The ice to start with is, say, at -3 deg. C. Suppose we apply such a pressure to this ice as will confer a melting point of -2 deg. C. on it. Obviously, there will be no melting. For why should ice which is at -3 deg. C. melt when its melting point is -2 deg. C.? The ice is, in fact, colder than its melting point. Hence, you note this fact: The pressure must be sufficiently intense to bring the melting point below the prevailing temperature, or there will be no melting; and the further we reduce the melting point by pressure below the prevailing temperature, the more ice will be melted. We come at length to the object of our remarks I don't know who invented skating or skates. It is said that in the thirteenth century the inhabitants of 272 England used to amuse themselves by fastening the bones of an animal beneath their feet, and pushing themselves about on the ice by means of a stick pointed with iron. With such skates, any performance either on inside or outside edge was impossible. We are a conservative people. This exhilarating amusement appears to have served the people of England for three centuries. Not till 1660 were wooden skates shod with iron introduced from the Netherlands. It is certain that skating was a fashionable amusement in Pepys' time. He writes in 1662 to the effect: "It being a great frost, did see people sliding with their skates, which is a very pretty art." It is remarkable that it was the German poet Klopstock who made skating fashionable in Germany. Until his time, the art was considered a pastime, only fit for very young or silly people. I wish now to dwell upon that beautiful contrivance the modern skate. It is a remarkable example of how an appliance can develop towards perfection in the absence of a really intelligent understanding of the principles underlying its development. For what are the principles underlying the proper construction of the skate? After what I have said, I think you will readily understand. The object is to produce such a pressure under the blade that the ice will melt. We wish to establish such a pressure under the skate that even on a day when the ice is below zero, its melting 273 point is so reduced just under the edge of the skate that the ice turns to water.