WATER 115 



on their way down from the mountain tops 

 to the ocean or by the marine flora and 

 fauna. 



Not less valuable to the community of 

 living things than the dissolution of the rocks, 

 is the disintegration and transport of solid 

 material, largely dependent thereon, which 

 among its many results includes the prelim- 

 inary steps of soil formation. By these 

 familiar and enduring geological means chemi- 

 cal substances are mobilized in the greatest 

 variety of forms and conditions, and thus 

 rendered available for the living organism. 

 It is clearly evident from the chemist's long 

 experience with solvents that no other fluid 

 could permanently carry on this process with 

 such acceptable regularity and efficiency. 

 For no other chemically inert solvent can 

 compare with water in the number of things 

 which it can dissolve, nor in the amounts of 

 them which it can hold in solution ; and of 

 course any chemically active solvent must 

 sooner or later exhaust itself by its chemical 

 action, when the cycle must cease. Here, 

 then, is a fitness of water which is open to no 

 doubt. 



Let us turn for further proof to the organ- 

 ism itself, taking blood serum as a source of 

 information. The composition of this sub- 



