Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 August 1880 — The Chemistry of Water. [ARTICLE]

The Chemistry of Water.

In this fluid, so clear, so bright, sc grate* ful to the system, so healthful to the temperate, so necessary to all—the delight of Grecian song—the charm of the Eastern paradise —of this fluid, lauded, with justice, by the physiologist— chemistry tells us that three-fourths of our apparently solid bodies consist, and-that it forms nearly as large a proportion of all living vegetables during tne height and vigor of their growth. In this fluid, looked upon as elementary till nearly our own times, modem research has taught us to see the readic or a subtle union between the oxygen and another gas, to which the name of hydrogen (wa-ter-former) has been given. Kindle this latter gas in the air, and it burns with a pale flame. Hold a cold bell-glass over the flame, and its under surface will become bedewed with moisture, and drops of water will trickle down its sides. Collect this water and submit it to a current of electricity ; the liquid will disappear and in its stead the two gases, oxygen and hydrogen, will remain. These experiments prove—firri, that while burning in the air, the hydrogen unites with the oxygen of the atmosphere, and forms water; and second, that.the water thus formed consists of two gaseous constituents only, compressed ana bound together by some incomprehensible connection which it makes us no wiser to call idiemical combination. It is, indeed, incoinprehensible how water, the enemy of nre, should itself consist of two gases, the one of which burns most readily, while the other it the great natural supporter of living fire. Ana it is equally strange that oxygen, so indispensable to animal life, should form eight-ninths by weight of a liquid in which few terrestrial animals can live for more than two or three seconds of time. By no known theory of physical or mechanical union can we satisfactorily explain how properties so new should be the result of such chemical combinations.

The chemical study of this water in its relations to animal and vegetable life presents new points of interest. The most important of its chemical properties are so familiar to us that we rarely think of them, and do not sufficiently prise them. Pure water has neither taste, nor smell, nor pungency. It is neither sour like vinegar, nor sweet like ■ugar, nor alkaline like soda. It irritates no nerve of sensation, even the most delicate; nor is the tenderest part of the animal frame disturbed by contßte with this universal fluid. It is thus fitted to penetrate unfelt, into the subtlest tissues, and without causing the slightest jar to flow along the finest, most hair-like vessels. It soothes ana assuages wherever it comes, lessening inflammation—lulling pain—diluting unhealthy fluids within the body—ana washing morbid humors and waste materials from the sickly and changing frame. Again, as a cooling agent, water is equally invaluable. In a dry and thirsty land, we feel and, acknowledge the pleasure of bathing our heated bodies in the sea or the running stream. But we are lees sensible how it watches over us. 'as it were, every passing moment, dispelling each rising heat, ana removing from the body every excess of warmth which might disturb the equable workings of its many parts. Do we eat inflammatory food, or drink over-stimulating fluids, the excess of bodily warmth produced converts a portion of water into vapor, and the lungs throw it off into the ah. Do we. by hard labor, or other unusual exertion, exalt the temperature of the body, the same water again takes up the superfluous heat: and bathing witn perspiration both skin and lungs, restrains within due bounds the growing inflammation. But more widely useful still in relation to vegetable and animal life is the property which water possesses of dissolving and rendering fluid a host of usually solid bodies. Put sugar or salt into water, it disappears and becomes fluid and penetrative like the water itself. The sea salt contains within its bosom many substances so dissolved; the fluids that circulate through our veins are chiefly water.