Later that century British scientist Francis Bacon (1561-1626) furnished the royal family with ice by mixing saltpeter and snow. Robert Boyle (1627-1691), one of the founders of thermodynamics, also studied various salts as freezing agents and the effect of cold on animals, vegetables, and minerals. His
Experimental History of Cold was the first scientific study of refrigeration.
As experimentation with chemical refrigeration continued during the eighteenth century, the invention of the mechanical pump and thermometer provided the technology for new areas of research. William Cullen (1710-1790), a professor of medicine in Scotland, found that evaporative cooling increases in a vacuum and that volatile liquids like ether produce even lower temperatures. Edward Nairne (1726-1806) and John Leslie (1766-1832) discovered that sulfuric acid absorbs water vapor, an effect that produces cold. John Dalton (1766-1844) observed that air cools or heats its surroundings depending on whether it is expanding or contracting. These and other experiments were the foundation of mechanical refrigeration in the nineteenth century.
Before mechanical refrigeration became practical, the first half of the nineteenth century saw the rise of the natural ice industry.
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