Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 March 1894 — BOILING WATER. [ARTICLE]

BOILING WATER.

AVMatoAMStaftw I* to N«* «•» *• Cook Potatoes. “Cold boiling water, indeed! Boiling water is the hottest kind of thing. Doat I know? Haven’t I scalded my fingers more than once with water from the teakettle?* 1 James is right and yet he is wrong. Boiling water is not always hot water in spite of his painful experience. 1 This is the way it happens. When water boils ordinarily it is because great heat hat separated the tiny particles of the water, forcing upward and outward in lively bubbles the air which is contained in them. This is done in spite of the downward pressure of the atmosphere. After the water has become hot enough to boil it can get no hotter, becaus v the air escapes as fast as it is sufficiently- heated to do so. There are places on the earth where the pressure of the atmosphere upon the water is so slight that it requires but little heat to push apart the narticles and ret free the air bubb'es which are confined in the water, so it begins to boil before it is very hot. It ought hardly’ to be called cold water, perhaps, but it is certainly far from being as hot as ordinary’ boiling water. This state of things is found on ail I hig hmountain tops, as the atmosphere grows weaker and its pressure less as one ascends. A gentleman traveling at a gieat elevation in the Andes Mountains put some potatoes in a pot of water ever a hot fire. The water began to boil almost immediately, but the potatoes did not cook. All the afternoon and all night the water bubbled and boiled, but still the potatoes were not cooked. The boiling wat r was not hot enough. —New Orleans Times-Democrat.