CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 241 



turpentine. Even in this case, however, it is claimed that it may be 

 advantageously used in the production of heat. 



Some of the obvious consequences following fiam the above discov- 

 ery are 550 contrary to all received views, that they have led many to 

 doubt the reality of the discovery, and it is evident that, if it is all that 

 is claimed, there remain many phenomena to be explained, the chief 

 one being the entire absence of the oxygen when the hydrogen is gen- 

 erated for burning. 



GASEOUS TRANSFORMATION OF Y/ATER. 



AT the meeting of the Royal Society on Jan. 24, a communication 

 was read from M. Daniel Paret, " on the gaseous transformation of 

 water, by means of a pile in two separate compartments, having no 

 other electric communication between them besides conducting-wires 

 of copper, and giving in the one oxygen alone, and hydrogen alone 

 in the other." After premising that, at the present time, it is the 

 generally received opinion that water is a compound of oxygen and 

 hydrogen, the author states that he now brings forward an experiment 

 which proves, not that water is a compound, but really a simple ele- 

 ment, the generator of oxygen and hydrogen, since, without being de- 

 composed, a given volume of water may be entirely transformed at 

 will, either into oxygen or hydrogen. Thus, he considers, it is no 

 longer a decomposition of preexisting elements which is effected, but 

 really a gaseous transformation, into two "sub-elements," which are 

 formed at the expense of the water, by the transposition of its com- 

 bined or coercitive electricity, which places itself in excess in the 

 water which becomes oxygen, at the expense of another volume which 

 becomes hydrogen. However astonishing this may appear, it is " un 

 fait accompli et acquis a la science." After describing the experiments 

 which he considers as supporting his doctrine, the author observes 

 that " these experiments prove, 1. That, contrary to the indefensi- 

 ble theory, a compound electric fluid which is decomposed and recom- 

 posed, there is a true transfer of fluid in the current, which, besides, 

 would be sufficiently evident by its motive power. 2. That the elec- 

 tric fluid is really the coercitive agent of cohesion. 3. That water is 

 not a compound, is not an oxide, but truly a first element, the genera- 

 tor of oxygen and hydrogen. 4. In fine, it reveals a body unknown 

 until now, and very likely many other bodies are in the same condi- 

 tion as water." Proc. Royal Society. 



ON THE SPHEROIDAL STATE OF BODIES. 



AT a meeting of the American Academy in November, Prof. Hors- 

 ford read a paper on the spheroidal state of bodies, of which the fol- 

 lowing is an abstract. From the earlier observations of Leidenfrost, 

 and the later extended researches of Boutigny,* upon the so-called 

 spheroidal state of bodies, much attention has been directed to the phe- 



* See Annual of Scientific Discovery, 1530. pp. 196-198. 

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