CHEMICAL HISTORY OF A CANDLE m 



things from it; but water, as water, remains alwayt the 

 same, either in a solid, liquid, or fluid state. Here again 

 [holding another bottle] is some water produced by the 

 combustion of an oil-lamp. A pint of oil, when burnt fairly 

 and properly, produces rather more than a pint of water. 

 Here, again, is some water, produced by a rather long 

 experiment, from a wax candle. And so we can go on 

 with almost all combustible substances, and find that if they 

 burn with a flame, as a candle, they produce water. You 

 may make these experiments yourselves : the head of a poker 

 is a very good thing to try with, and if it remains cold long 

 enough over the candle, you may get water condensed in 

 drops on it; or a spoon, or ladle, or any thing else may be 

 used, provided it be clean, and can carry off the heat, and 

 so condense the water. 



And now to go into the history of this wonderful pro- 

 duction of water from combustibles, and by combustion I 

 must first of all tell you that this water may exist in different 

 conditions; and although you may now be acquainted with 

 all its forms, they still require us to give a little attention 

 to them for the present; so that we may perceive how the 

 water, while it goes through its Protean changes, is entirely 

 and absolutely the same thing, whether it is produced from 

 a candle, by combustion, or from the rivers or ocean. 



First of all, water, when at the coldest, is ice. Now we 

 philosophers I hope that I may class you and myself to- 

 gether in this case speak of water as water, whether it be 

 in its solid, or liquid, or gaseous state we speak of it chemi- 

 cally as water. Water is a thing compounded of two sub- 

 stances, one of which we have derived from the candle, and 

 the other we shall find elsewhere. Water may occur as ice ; 

 and you have had most excellent opportunities lately of see- 

 ing this. Ice changes back into water for we had on our 

 last Sabbath a strong instance of this change by the sad 

 catastrophe which occurred in our own house, as well as in 

 the houses of many of our friends ice changes back into 

 water when the temperature is raised; water also changes 

 into steam when it is warmed enough. The water which we 

 have here before us is in its densest state ;( u ) and, although 



" Water is in its densest state at a temperature of 39.1 Fahrenheit 



