CHAPTER II 



CONSTITUTION OF MATTER 



Introduction. We have learned in Chapter I that 

 everything in nature, whether solid, liquid, or gas, is 

 matter. We know, too, from observation that under 

 different conditions of temperature the same substance 

 may be successively a solid, a liquid, and a gas. In other 

 words, with a sufficiently great change in temperature 

 most substances may be changed from one state of mat- 

 ter into another. As an example take water. Below 

 32 F. it passes into the solid state ; between 32 F. and 

 212 F. it is a liquid, and when heated to 212 F. it 

 passes into a vapor or a gaseous state. 



Some common observations. Many ideas . regarding 

 things in nature, commonly accepted by most people 

 as self-evident, are found by scientists to be entirely 

 at variance with the facts. A glass filled with water- 

 is commonly thought to have all the space in the glass 

 occupied, yet with care one is able to put a teaspoonful 

 or more of sugar into the glass without increasing the 

 volume of the water. The sugar disappears and yet the 

 volume of water does not increase. A more striking 

 phenomenon occurs if fifty cubic centimeters of alcohol 

 are carefully poured into a burette containing fifty 



