CHEMISTEY OF HORTICULTURE. WATER. 
259 
The plant forms a tall, erect, branching herb with a fine spreading habit. The leaves 
are stalked, and the cauline ones are palmately multifid. The flowers are paniculately 
racemose, and produced in a long succession, being still (September) finely in bloom, and 
having numerous lateral branches containing abundance of unexpanded buds. The sepals 
are of the most brilliant blue, and in the words of Mr. Godwin, the plant " has been a 
truly magnificent object since the 17th of June." 
The cultivation of this kind, like that of all the other perennial Larkspurs, is simple 
and easy : they all grow with the greatest freedom in any common garden soil, and are 
propagated by division of the roots and by seeds ; the former is the best mode for the 
increase of any choice kind, as from the disposition of the sorts to sport with each other, it 
is seldom the offspring resemble the parent plants. 
Our drawing of this handsome Delphinium was made from a specimen, forwarded from 
the Collycroft Nursery, by Mr. Godwin, in August last. 
2. Delphinium coerulescens flore pleno. Double bluish Larkspur. 
3. Delphinium azureum. Azure blue Larkspur. Both of these flowered in the 
nursery of Messrs. Henderson, Pine-apple Place, Edgware Road, London, where our artist 
made the drawings, in July last. 
The generic name is derived from beXcptv, delphin, a dolphin, on account of the supposed 
resemblance between the nectary of the plant, and the imaginary figure of the dolphin. 
CHEMISTRY OF HORTICULTURE.— WATER. 
By John Towers, Esq. 
(Continued from Page 231.) 
By referring to page 134, June, it will be perceived that enough has been said to prove that 
Water can be made to develope the two elementary gases, Hydrogen and Oxygen, in the 
proportions of two volumes of the former to one volume of the latter ; and hence, that it 
must consist of the bases of those two gases, in the liquid form. These facts are established 
by chemical evidences, which admit of no doubt, and therefore it will be needless to dwell 
farther upon them. The properties and qualities of Water claim however the most serious 
investigation. In its natural or fluid form, it may be considered the first revealed, if not 
the parent of all created matter, but therein it is capable, by its great solvent power, of 
uniting with a vast variety of foreign substances, which materially affect its qualities, and 
interfere with the successful cultivation of plants. By the application of heat Water is 
converted into steam, in which state it appears to occupy 1728 times its original volume. 
Steam is a vehicle of electricity, and its particles are for a time separated by the repulsive 
power of that agent. Ice, during congelation, occupies more space than fluid water ; it 
conducts electricity, and may, indeed, when reduced to an extremely low temperature, be 
made to produce electric phenomena. In " Griffith's Chemistry of the Seasons," it is said 
to act as a burning glass, for if a plano-convex lens, that is, a hemisphere of ice, with a 
true and polished flat surface, be prepared according to the process therein described, and 
moved about at the distance of a few inches from a piece of German tinder, the latter will 
kindle, and thus afford another fact to prove " that the solar rays have been collected to a 
focus, and have lost no heat in their passage through ice at 32°." The plane surface should, 
in this experiment, be presented to the sun. 
Much attention has recently been given to the composition of Water by the com- 
missioners appointed to investigate the health of towns, and results of considerable interest 
have been obtained. 
Pure Water, such as is procured by the deflagration of the two water gases previously 
developed by the galvanic decomposition of common water, is rarely to be met with ; nor 
would it be of any value either to the gardener or housekeeper. 
