In common language, any thing is understood to be cooled or warmed when
the temperature thereof is made higher or lower, whatever may have been
the temperature when the change was commenced. Thus it is said that
melted iron is _cooled_ down to a sub-red heat, or mercury is cooled
from the freezing point to zero, or far below. By the same rule, solid
mercury, say 50° below zero, may, in any climate or temperature of the
atmosphere, be immediately warmed and melted by being imbedded in a
cake of ice.--_Scientific American._