402 KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



Water is the great leveler, not of men but of mountains. In this 

 direction it does a vast amount of work. If the mountains are high, 

 there is much to do ; so the water runs swiftly and carries a large 

 amount of material, both in solution and suspension, and hurries away 

 to the sea with its load. Unlike men, the faster it runs the heavier 

 the load it carries. If the land is broad and the mountains and hills 

 are low, there is little to be done; so the water runs leisurely and 

 carries little material except in solution. 



Water is the great universal carrier that conveys to every living 

 being, whether plant or animal, the heat, electricity, and chemical 

 elements necessary to its well-being, happiness, and full development. 

 Every drop of water carries with it, wherever it goes, a force that is 

 necessary for the building up of new tissues, and new forms. In this 

 respect water is the most important element on the face of the earth. 

 Its constituents also are the most abundant. Hydrogen is one of the 

 most abundant elements ; and oxygen is said to compose half the 

 mineral material of the earth and two-thirds of all the animal and 

 vegetable matter, 



FORMS OF WATER. 



Water, like most substances, may have either of three forms — 

 liquid, solid, or gaseous. There is a fourth form, resulting from the 

 solidifying of the vaporous form without liquefaction and in combi- 

 nation with a large amount of atmospheric air. This we call snow. 

 The air may be squeezed out of it at any time by simple compression. 

 It then becomes true ice. 



At ordinary temperatures, between 32° and 212" of the common 

 Fahrenheit thermometer, water is a liquid composed of the two gases 

 named. Hydrogen, the basis, is supposed to be the gaseous condition 

 of a metal, gaseous at all earthly temperatures. It is the lightest of 

 all known gases. It has been liquefied at 400° below zero F., under a 

 very high pressure. No cold has been produced sufficient to liquefy 

 hydrogen at ordinary atmospheric pressure. No cold can be produced 

 on earth that will solidify hydrogen without pressure. Oxygen, the 

 life-giving element, is a gas at all ordinary temperatures. It may be 

 liquefied, but at a very low temperature and under an enormous 

 pressure. 



Below 32° F. water becomes solid, and is then called ice, When 

 ice is floating in ice-water it has the same temperature as the water. 

 Before the ice can change to water it must absorb as much heat as is 

 necessary to raise ice-water to 176° F., four-fifths the amount of heat 

 required to boil ice-water with all the ice removed from it. 



Conversely, water in freezing gives out four-fifths as much heat as 

 is necessary to raise the same amount of water from the freezing-point 

 to the boiling-point. This explains the mildness of the fall and 



