Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 August 1894 — Matter Indestructible. [ARTICLE]

Matter Indestructible.

An essential property of matter, but which does not commend itself to superficial observation, like those of extension and resistance, is indestructibility. So far as experience and observation can discover, matter can neither be created nor destroyed. On the surface facts seem to contradict this assertion, for any particular portion of matter may be decomposed and resolved into its constituent parts, so that it seems to have disappeared, because the form under which we knew it is no longer present. In reality, however, no diminution in the quantity of existing matter has taken place. One proof of this is easily afforded by combustion. If we allow a piece of wood or coal, or any combustible solid body, to “burn away," there will, as we all know, be ashes remaining. If, while the combustion is going on, we take means to preserve not only the ashes, but also every part of the body which would ordinarily be dissipated as smoke and steam, and then weigh all the different substances, solid, liquid, j or gaseous, that we have obtained, ; we shall find the combined weights S equal to the original weight of the body Itself.—Good Words.