'ty^li rewar/^s on grammar. IJig 



EXERCISES IN PRACTICAL GRAMMAR. ^ 

 Continued from p. 282. vol. vii. 

 The following examples may serve as a specimen of 

 the manner in which I think words ought to be ex- 

 plained. 



A Dictionary, 

 To MELT, V. To liquefy solid bodies by the appli- 

 cation of heat, without the intervention of any fluid 

 medium. It has some relation to the word difsolve. 

 For the distinctions, see difsolve. 



To DISSOLVE, V. To liquefy a solid object through the 

 medium of a fluid body applied to it, nearly connected 

 with the word to melt. Lead, iron, or other metals, 

 tallow, wax, X^c. are meltedhy the application of heat 

 alone. Salt and sugar are difsolved when pat into 

 water in due proportions. Here we have the dis- 

 criminating idea which distinguiflies these words on 

 all occasions with the utmost precision, and it ought 

 never to be lost sight of in using either of the words. 

 In some cases difsolving and melting are so similair 

 in appearancn, that they have been confounded, and 

 the words of course indiscriminately applied hy in- 

 accurate writers ex. gr.. ice, when it is reduced to wa- 

 ter by heat, is melted, not difsolved ; but, during that 

 procefs, the pieces of ice float in the water, in a man- 

 ner so similar to that of lumps of sugar in the same 

 medium, and gradually disappear, so much in the 

 same way, that few persons have any difficulty in 

 saying that the ice difolves, in the same manner as 

 the sugar ; but this is an inaccuracy of exprefsion. Ice 

 IS water in every respect, except the modification of its 



