COMBUSTION DESTRUCTIVE DISTIL L ATION. 



36. The extreme division to which bodies are subjected in many 

 natural and artificial processes, and especially when exposed to 

 the application of heat or fire, has naturally suggested to minds 

 not habituated to the rigid process of scientific reasoning, the idea 

 that bodies are destructible. The ancients, instead of the modern 

 practice of inhumation, disposed of the bodies of their dead by 

 burning them, upon the supposition that their component parts 

 were by such operation destroyed. 



The more exact reasoning of modern philosophy, however, 

 teaches us that a power to destroy matter would be as inconceiv- 

 able in a finite agent as a power to create it. 



It is certain that the quantity of matter which exists upon and 

 in the earth has never been diminished by the annihilation of a 

 single atom. 



Matter is in fact indestructible by any agency short of divine 

 power. It may be asked, then, what becomes of the matter com- 

 posing a body Avhich, being subjected to the action of fire, gradu- 

 ally and completely disappears. The answer is, that in this, as 

 well as in all other cases of the apparent destruction of matter, 

 nothing takes place except its subdivision and the change of its 

 form and position. 



37. When a body is subjected to the action of heat, its elements 

 are decomposed, and its constituent particles separated, many of 

 them combine with other particles of matter, and form new sub- 

 stances possessing other qualities. Thus, when coal or other fuel 

 is burned, the carbon enters into combination with one of the 

 constituents of the atmosphere called oxygen, and forms a gaseous 

 substance called carbonic acid, which rises into and mixes with 

 the atmosphere. Another element, hydrogen, combines with the 

 same constituent of the atmosphere and forms vapor, which also 

 disperses in the atmosphere.* 



Sulphur, which is also occasionally present in fuel, combines 

 with the same constituent of the air, forming a gas called sulphu- 

 reous acid, which also escapes into the atmosphere. Thus the 

 entire matter of the fuel, with the exception of a small portion of 

 incombustible matter which falls into the ash-pit, is dispersed in 

 the air, and no destruction or annihilation takes place. 



That no portion of the matter of the fuel is destroyed or anni- 

 hilated .can be established by the incontrovertible experimental 

 proofs of the chemist, for by the expedients of his science 

 all the products of the combustion which have been just men- 

 tioned can be preserved and weighed. The oxygen which has 

 entered into combination with each element of the fuel can be 



* See our Tract on " Fire." 



207 



