226 
GARDENING AS A SCIENCE. 
minutes and three quarters of time, to effect its decomposition, which current must 
be powerful enough to retain a platina wire ± -^ T of an inch in thickness" (and of 
any length) "red hot, in the air during the whole time, and if interrupted any- 
where by charcoal points, will produce a very brilliant and constant star of light. 
If attention be paid to the instantaneous discharge of electricity of tension, as 
illustrated in the beautiful experiment of Mr. Wheatstone, and to what I have said 
elsewhere on the relation of common and voltaic electricity, it will not be too much 
to say that this necessary quantity of electricity is equal to a very powerful flash 
of lightning. Yet we have it under perfect command ; can evolve, direct, and 
employ it at pleasure ; and when it has performed its full work of electrolyzation, 
it has only separated the elements of a single grain of water ! " Again — 
" On the other hand, the relation between the conduction of the electricity, and 
the decomposition of the water is so close that one cannot take place without the 
other. If the water is altered only in that small degree which consists in its 
having the solid instead of the fluid state, the conduction is stopped with it." 
Our object in citing these evidences is two-fold— -firsts to prove that water 
cannot be decomposed without the passing of an electrical current, and therefore, 
that whenever the condition of water is changed, throughout nature, the change is 
produced by natural electricity, or in other words, by some chemical attractions 
between bodies possessing different electrical relations. All meteorological pheno- 
mena depend upon some disturbance of the aqueous elements ; therefore, we 
conclude that they are essentially electrical. We are but too apt to refer all our 
ideas of electricity to the phenomena of the thunder-storm, forgetting that not a 
particle of dew, or of the mist which floats on the surface of the earth, could exist 
without the agency of some electric attraction. All nature, indeed, is replete with 
this vitalising principle. 
Second — We remark that our author has alluded to water in the solid form, a 
condition in which the passing of the current is arrested. Water, then, is admitted 
to exist in three states, the vaporous, the fluid, and the solid ; and with this 
admission we claim another, namely that the elements of water, hydrogen and 
oxygen, are equally capable of existing in the same forms. When solidified, as in 
the state of ice, electricity does not pass ; on the contrary, a globe or cylinder of ice 
can be excited to transmit sparks of electricity ; fluid water can conduct, but not 
so freely as when mixed with a minute quantity of any mineral acid ; but water 
in the state of steam is an absolute vehicle of electricity, hence the peculiar feeling 
of chilliness which attends a moist condition of the atmosphere. 
The development of oxygen and hydrogen gases during the decomposition of 
water, by the passing of the electric current, proves to a demonstration that these 
bodies are replete w T ith electricity, but existing in two opposite conditions, each, 
however, capable of attracting, blending with, and neutralizing the other. 
The re-union of the two, and the consequent re-formation of water, is effected 
silently, or with more or less violence, according to predisposing circumstances ; 
