A GLASS OF WATER. 659 



oxygen and hydrogen, which, with the characteristics of combustion, 

 combine to form the well-known liquid. This fact was of such para- 

 mount importance, that at great expense a whole glass oficater was 

 produced by combustion, and the water was shown to possess the 

 identical properties of pure rain-water. 



In the beginning, chemistry, being still a young science, had to 

 attend to domestic arrangements. It must first obtain the substances 

 and contrive the apparatus wherewith to explore the natures of the 

 various bodies composing our globe. A celebrated period soon fol- 

 lowed, during which every number of a scientific journal would be 

 filled with important and most momentous discoveries. So glorious 

 an epoch as this probably never before occurred in the history of man- 

 kind. New elements, new compounds, were discovered unknown 

 compounds separated into their component elements. The discovery 

 of the alkaline metals and earths was an event which astonished the 

 world. The natures of such bodies as would not yield to analysis 

 were divined, and subsequent experimentation has verified the specu- 

 lations. Thus the pi-esence of a metal in clay, lime, and quartz, was 

 distinctly foretold ; fifty years later it was actually produced. 



The consequences of any discovery are incalculable. Davy inves- 

 tigated the nature of the flame, and communicated his discoveries in a 

 lecture before a large audience. He demonstrated that it was within 

 our power to produce a flame which, at a state of extreme heat, con- 

 tained either free oxygen or unburnt carbon ; that a large grate with 

 a limited supply of coal would generate the former, the oxidizing 

 flame, while a small grate with a larger amount of coal would yield 

 the other, the flame devoid of oxygen, but in which combustible sub- 

 stances might be melted without the danger of combustion. Among 

 the hearers sat a young man by the name of Cort, who directed his 

 mind to these remarks. Up to that time cast-iron was converted into 

 wrought-iron by heating it with charcoal and exposing the melted 

 metal to a blast of air. By this process only small quantities of 

 wrought-iron were obtained at a time, through the necessity of pro- 

 ducing but one bloom in a heat, which might easily be hammered out ; 

 and also on account of the cost of charcoal. In this process mineral 

 coal could not be placed in contact with the iron, because the never- 

 failing presence of sulphur in that kind of coal would render the iron 

 unfit for use. From Davy's lecture on the flame, Cort struck upon the 

 idea of decarbonizing cast-iron without exposing it to the danger of 

 the contact with coal, by allowing the flames only of the coal to play 

 upon the cast-iron. Thus originated that wonderful operation called 

 the puddling process. Large quantities of cast-iron are melted on the 

 floor of a reverberatory furnace (so named from having an arch which 

 throws the flame back on the iron), and a portion of the carbon in the 

 iron is burnt up by the oxidizing flame ; as soon as the iron passes 

 from the liquid state to a pasty condition, the puddler rakes it by 



