Sir,

The following is an extract of a letter to me from Major Edward Williams, of the Royal Artillery, a learned man, and of great professional merit. Being at Quebec in some very cold winters, among various other ingenious experiments, it occurred to him to try the force of congelation in some of the iron bomb-shells, which are usually fired out of mortars in the practice of artillery; by filling the cavity of the shell with water, and then, having plugged up the fuze-hole, exposing it to the cold to freeze the water, in order to find whether the expansion of the ice would be capable of bursting the shell.