• N T»F. NATURE OF WATER. 15^ 



IX. 



Questions on the Nature of Water. In a heller Jrom a 

 Correspondent. 



To Mr. NICHOLSON. 

 SIR, 



VV Il^l-you permit a yonnf^ Tyro in chemistry, to solicit 

 information throngli the medium of your Journal, upon a 

 few observations of some of your celebrated oheoiists^ 

 which have excited his attention, and unsettled his idcRff. ** 



In the last edition of Mr. Parkes's Chemic^dl Catechism, 

 p. 106, is the following- note. " Some recent speculations 

 ** of Mr. Davy seem to involve the conclusion, that wa* ji^g pa^ufg ^^ 

 " ler is not a compound body, but the ponderable base^ater. 

 ** both of oxi^frt and hidrogen gasses, pssirming either of 

 •* these forms according to its electrical states. See 

 " Murray's Chemistry 2d ed. Vol. IT, 136; or Mr. Davy's 

 " paper in the Phil. Trans, for 180S." — Now there is not 

 in Dalton's New Chemica'l IPhllosophy, or in the 6th edi- 

 tion of Dr. Henry's ^Elements of Experimental Chemistry 

 (botb very recently published) any mention of any such an 

 idea; — the latter considers ^?'c?fog^n as a metallic body> in 

 a statf: of opposite electricity to oxigen ; for, like other in- 

 flammable substances, it is naturally in a state of positive 

 electricity, and he distinctly says, that the two gasses have 

 different bases, oxigen and hidrogen ; and that vrater is a 

 compound, not of the two gassed, but of oxigeu and hi- 

 drogien. ' ' ' -^ ■- 



In the Ist vo^.-^ of Dr. Henry's Elements, p. 223, last 

 edition, ""he says, ** AVhen friction is applied to the ^lass 

 *' cylinder of anelectrical machine, the electric fluid flows 

 ** to it from surfonnding bodies, and th.ence passes to the 

 ** prime conductor, in which it exists in a greater than 

 *< natural quantity. All then that is effected, by the 

 " action of the machine, is a disturbance of the natural 

 •* quantity of electricity in bodies, or a transfer of it from ' 

 ** spm« to others, in consequence of whicli,! while the latter 

 '* acquire a redundance, the former become proportionally 



And he adds, 



to have several ad- 



•* vantages 



** deficient in this quantity of electricity, 

 in a not^, ^^* This theory appears to me te 



