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Excerpt from Water and Water Supplies From the time of Aristotle until the close of the eighteenth century, water was regarded as an elementary substance, -that is, one which could not be split up or decomposed into any simpler forms of matter. In 1781 an English chemist, Henry Cavendish, discovered that when two gases, oxygen and hydrogen, were mixed together in certain proportions (two of hydrogen to one of oxygen) and an electric spark passed through the mixture, combination took place and water was formed. Many other ways have since been devised for causing these gases to combine and for demonstrating that water is the product formed. By other methods also water can be decomposed and made to yield the two elemehts which alone enter into its composition When pure. For example, if a strong current of electricity be passed through water, bubbles of gas are given off from each terminal or pole. At the one pole the gas consists of pure oxygen, at the other of pure hydrogen, and the volumes obtained are two of the latter to one of the former. As oxygen is sixteen times as heavy as hydrogen, the composition of pure water is as under. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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