AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 593 



already electrized or magnetized bodies, the amount developed, 

 whether positive or negative, will be proportional to the amount 

 of oxygen concentrated or dilTused, whether chemically or mechan- 

 ically, but particularly the former, and however the connexion 

 may be disguised, I think we will always find such the case if we 

 search to the fountain head. 



Now let us see how all this, bearing upon the theory of specific 

 electricity, relates to steam. I will call attention to the fact, that 

 just as certain as electricity in motion, but conducted, (not abso- 

 lutely free,) produces magnetism, so where v^er electricity is in 

 motiim, but un-conducted, it produces light and fire. 



We place water in a boiler and coal on the grate, but the oxy- 

 gen of the air and the carbon of the fuel have little or no affinity 

 while cold, and nothing occurs. In common language, we must 

 light the fire, in chemical language, w^e must bring a portion of 

 the combustible, or the supporter, or both, at some limited point 

 of contact, to a state of incandescence, or a temperature of about 

 800 degrees Farenheit. 



At this point, the cliemical affinity, which combustion simply is, 

 becomes intense, heat is developed and communicated to other 

 surrounding points, affinity and combustion are spread through 

 the mass, temperature, light and electricity, whether identical or 

 not, are set free. 



Electricity unconducted and in motion, always attendant upon 

 which are light and fire, as before pointed out, is then developed, 

 its quantity being as the diff"erence between the specific electricity 

 of the products of combustion and that of the elements of com- 

 bustion, proportioned also, almost, if not entirely, to the oxygen 

 consumed, as in the same case the heat will be. 



As heat, — temperature, — was necessary to bring about the 

 affinity that produced combustion between the oxygen and the 

 carbon, so was temperature necessary to produce a similar affinity 

 for electricity on the part of the water, to cause it to absorb it and 

 take the vapor form; and let it be observed, as circumstantial 

 evidence of what forces are at work in this case, that there is no 

 medium state between the existence of the water as a liquid and 

 its existence in the vapor form. The change is instantaneous 

 with each particle considered by itself. 



How is it that the water, in being brought to the boiling point, 

 expands by heat, as we commonly consider it, only about 1-30 of 

 its volume, and having received this heat but slowly, water being 

 but a poor heat conductor, at this point at once expands many 

 hundred fold, and has suddenly become capable of taking up, in 



