78 OXIGEN IN WATFR. 



maintaining the life of fishes, this may be instantly effected by 

 pouring it into a large vessel, where it can again absorb the 

 oxygen of the atmosphere. The same observation is true 

 with regard to the snow water ; we may render it capable 

 of supporting the lives of fishes, and of serving for their 

 respiration, if we put it in a vessel that shall expose a large 

 surface to the air, in order that it may again absorb the 

 oxygen it has thrown off during the congelation. 



Snow or ice water is then, without any doubt, destitute 

 of oxigen, as well as that which has served for the respira- 

 tion of fishes, who have the faculty, by this process, of sepa- 

 rating and of absorbing all the oxygen, which is there in a 

 state of solution. 



There is not the slightest difference between snow and 

 ice water,; with regard to the privation of their oxygen ; 

 both are (^iyested of it. So that what those two respectable 

 physicians have advanced in their memoir, does not appear 

 to be well founded. It appears, according to them, that ice 

 contains a portion of oxygen, but that water in congealing 

 throws off a great part of it, mixed with azotic gas, and 

 that water in its transformation into snow throws off less air 

 than when transformed into ice ; because, when they caused 

 snow newly fallen to melt, by gradual warmth, they have 

 obtained from it a mass of air almost double that afforded by 

 melted ice. 



It is true we see much air disengage itself from snoW while 

 melting : but it is not any air contained in the frozen or 

 chrystalized water which constitutes the snow ; but it is an 

 air confined between the irerstices of the snow, remaining 

 attached to the faces or surfaces of the chrystals that com- 

 pose it ; and it is for this reab^ n that we see much air pro- 

 ceed from the snow while meitmg. I have already stated, 

 many of those observations in two memoirs on snow water, 

 inserted in the Journal de Physique of Paris, ofVentose, in 

 the year 7, and of Thermidor, in the year 9 ; for which 

 reason I shall not extend these reflections to any greater 

 length. 



