Force and Form. 1053 



The union of the sexual elements in the formation of a new body, 

 mentioned by Mivart as a sample miracle, is as explicable as any other 

 chemical reaction. Take, for example, the formation of hydrochloric 

 acid, or muriatic acid, as it was formerly called, mentioned on page 

 409. Hydrogen is the lightest of all gases, and is without odor, color 

 or taste. It is scarcely soluble at all in water, as 100 parts of water 

 will take in only about 1|- parts of the gas. Chlorine is a yellowish- 

 green gas of suffocating odor, and astringent taste, about 2-^ times as . 

 heavy as air and 35|- times as heavy as hydrogen. It is fairly soluble 

 in water, one volume of water dissolving three volumes of the gas. 

 When equal volumes of these two gases are united, they form muriatic 

 acid which is a colorless pungent acid gas. This gas, considering its 

 constituents, is astonishingly soluble in water, one volume of water ab- 

 sorbing no less than 450 volumes of the gas at 15. This solution is 

 the liquid acid. Here then we have by the expenditure of force upon 

 two bodies, a product totally different in mechanical structure and 

 therefore totally different in function from either of them. 



Again consider water, formed of two volumes of hydrogen and one 

 of oxygen. Oxygen is a gas 16 times as heavy as hydrogen, so that it 

 composes eight-ninths of the water. It is also one-half of silica 

 (quartz, sand, &c. , ) and one-third of alumina (clay). "Fully of the 

 weight of all minerals, f of the weight of all animals, and J of the 

 weight of all vegetables is oxygen " (Barker). It is the supporter of 

 all animal and vegetable life ; all human life would cease inside of 30 

 minutes if oxygen were suddenly eliminated from the air. Oxygen 

 supports our lives by slowly burning us up. As the product of this 

 combustion and that of burning wood, coal, &c. , is carbonic dioxide 

 (C0 2 ), this gas may be called burnt carbon. In like manner water is 

 burnt hydrogen. Both the gas (C0 2 ) and the liquid are used to put 

 out fire because neither of them can be burnt any more thorough^ than 

 it is ; and a man can be drowned with equal facility in either. Water 

 is more than 11,000 times as heavy as the same volume of hydrogen, 

 and nearly 700 times as heavy as oxygen, showing both an enormous 

 condensation of the materials and change in molecular structure in the 

 formation of the liquid from the gases. The properties, reactions, or 

 functions of water differ as radically from those of its constituent 

 gases, as its new molecular constitution differs from theirs, and we have 

 no hesitation in affirming ; because it so differs. 



Again take a pair of common seidlitz powders ; dissolve each sepa- 

 rately in half a tumbler of water. The two solutions give no indica- 

 tion by their quiet and demure appearance, of the hubbub they will 

 raise when the contents of one glass are poured into the other. The ef- 

 fervescence that then takes place is caused by the escape of carbonic 



