274 THE CHEMISTRY OF CREATION. 



rapidly than substances having smooth surfaces, 

 are always first and most abundantly covered 

 with dew. In the history of Gideon's fleece, the 

 most striking miracle, as we speak, of the two 

 performed was not that it should be full of water, 

 while all the ground around was dry, but that 

 it alone should be dry, while the surface of the 

 earth around was wet with dew ; for a fleece is a 

 good radiator of heat, and would naturally cool 

 before other bodies, and become saturated with 

 dew sooner than many other substances, but 

 unless shaded, all the ground around would be 

 more or less wet with dew, especially in the 

 East, where the dews are much more profuse 

 than in our country. It was consequently a 

 complete reversal of the ordinary laws of nature, 

 that the fleece alone should be dry ; and, as if to 

 mark the more special interference of God in this 

 case, it is sufficiently striking that the sacred 

 text with reference to it contains the expression, 

 " God did so." 



Dew does not in reality present the least che- 

 mical difference from pure water. It is, in fact, 

 the purest form in which water is found.* Rain 

 water is more or less charged with impurities ; 



* Very minute traces of nitric and muriatic acids have- 

 been stated as discoverable in dew occasionally. In hoar 

 frost, which is frozen dew, none have been found. It is 

 therefore probable such impurities were accidental 



