6 4 o SCIENCE PROGRESS 



puny efforts to explain the maddening thirst begotten in water 

 by the salts which the unconquerable and untiring scavenger, 

 throughout the ages, has washed from the surface of our globe. 

 While a Coleridge sings : 



Water, water, everywhere, 

 Nor any drop to drink, 



the fish, naked but unashamed, in very scorn of our weakness, 

 swim calmly in the ocean and are not harmed. It is only too 

 true that familiarity breeds contempt : we have so lost ourselves 

 in muddy pools ; like the common painter we have so fixed our 

 attention on the mud, that we know nought of clean water — 

 clear, persistent thinking alone can give us knowledge ; and 

 that has been set aside of late. 



Since 1885, my voice has been that of one crying in the 

 wilderness when, time after time, I have insisted that it is 

 essential to take the water in aqueous solutions into account- 

 that water is altogether peculiar among solvents ; the meagre 

 answer of those who now are compelled to admit that it is active 

 has been, "It has high specific inductive capacity" — truly a 

 stone for bread. Apparently, the situation has been so trying 

 to the nerves of those afflicted with ionomania that, like the 

 burglarious railway porter in Mr. Barrie's recent play, they have 

 elected to take the solute neat : it might be supposed because 

 the advocates of the doctrine came from colder or damper climes 

 than our own, where water is at a discount, were it not that, 

 while thinking of the cordial, with strange inconsistency they 

 have elected to deal only with beverages containing the merest 

 dash of spirit. 



But, as did Sister Anne in the fairy story, I see signs of 

 approaching help : there is reason to think that Wotan's spear is 

 broken at last ; that the Gotterdammerung must soon be enacted. 

 Thus two writers in a recent number of Liebig's Annalen 

 der Chemie, Messrs. Decker and von Fellenberg, not only put 

 forward the original conclusion that oxygen is to be treated as a 

 tetradic element but, such is the encouragement given by recent 

 revolt against imperial autocracy — actually dare to murmur 

 against ionic autocracy. Their words are noteworthy: 



In den verdunnten Losungen von Salzsaure in Wasser ist 

 Oxoniumchlorid anzunehmen, genau wie in den Losungen von 

 Salzsaure in flussigem Ammoniak Salmiak angenommen wird 



