CONVERSATIONAL MEETINGS. 



REMARKS OF R. L. PELL, of Pelham, Ulster Co., N. Y. 



WATER. 



Mr. President — -Our subject this evening is water, its compositioR 

 and general properties; by consulting Webster and other authors, I 

 am enabled to give you the following facts: 



In order to understand the nature of it, we must examine its con- 

 stitution chemically. Water was for centuries considered one of the 

 natural elements, and consequently incapable of being separated so 

 as to form other substances, and were it not for that most important 

 of all sciences, chemistry,it would still be so considered ; such is not 

 the fact, however; water is a combination of two kinds of gas, and 

 they are called hydrogen and oxygen ^ the latter is one of the com- 

 ponent parts of the atmosphere we are constantly inhaling, and with- 

 out which, we could not exist a moment. Hydrogen is an inflam- 

 mable substance, and one that is used artificially to illuminate our 

 streets, in the form of hydrogen gas, which may be produced from 

 sulphuric acid and zinc; it forms combustion by uniting with the oxy- 

 gen of the atmosphere, and water is the result of this union. 



Water must not be considered a mere mechanical mixture of the 

 two gases, oxygen and hydrogen — as is proved by placing the two 

 in a vessel, water will not be formed ; to obtain water, the two gases 

 must be united chemically, by burning them in a dry vessel, and per- 

 fectly pure water will be generated, precisely equal in weight to the 

 two gases consumed. This water may again be separated into ogy- 

 gen and hydrogen, proving beyond the possibility of a doubt, that it 

 is a compound body, and that it cannot be considered as one of the 

 elements. Water is always composed of 8 parts of oxygen and 1 of 

 hydrogen ; this rule never, under any circumstances, changes, whether 

 the v/ater be hard or soft. If you place a quantity of water in a tub, 

 and set it in the air, it will lessen hourly in quantity, and finally en- 

 tirely disappear, you will naturally say it has " dried up." Such is 

 not the case, being volatile, it has mingled insensibly with the atmos- 

 phere in the form of vapor; not a single particle of water has been 

 'lost by this operation, the whole of it will again return to the earth 



