174 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
can make it appear, is that it is condensed; which I 
will not admit without plain proof. I say it is con¬ 
fined, if there should any appear in the grain, but do 
not believe it to be condensed. There might be some 
probability of air being condensed in grain, provided 
it grew to the size of a pumpkin, and as hollow, and 
then diminished until it attained the size of wh»at; 
but as wheat forms in a very small milky substance, 
and continues to expand until it ripens; 1 say if it 
contains air at its formation, it has more room as the 
grain grows. I apprehend he will be disappointed if 
he expects to convert nine-tenths of the agricultural 
community to the belief, that the wheat they raise is 
even one hundredth part air. It is an established 
fact in philosophy, that air fills all space that is not 
occupied by any other matter, and one of its first 
principles is, that no two things can occupy the same 
place, at the same time. Now, this wise man has 
made a discovery that no philosopher has done before 
him, which is, that all solid bodies contain fixed air. 
I will quote, for his information, Blair’s definition of 
solidity, viz. “Solidity is that property which every 
substance possesses, of not permitting any other sub¬ 
stance to occupy the same place at the same time.” 
I cannot favor him with the grinding of my wheat, as 
long as he makes a deduction of from one to five 
pounds per bushel for fixed air. Yours most respect¬ 
fully, WILLIAM A. STONE. 
The Combined Effect of Heat and Water on the 
Temperature of the Atmosphere. 
It is a law in the science of heat, “that all bodies, 
in passing from a rare to a dense state, emit caloric.” 
It is found, a'so, that when any great change takes 
place in a body, as its passing from a solid to a liquid, 
from a liquid to a vapor, or vice-versa —a great quan¬ 
tity of caloric is either absorbed or emitted, according 
to its change ; whether from a dense to a rare state, 
or the contrary, which previously remained latent and 
unappreciable. It is found by experiment, that wa¬ 
ter, in freezing, gives out 140° of latent heat, and 
the ice remains at the same temperature immediately 
after, as the water was immediately before freezing, 
viz. 32°. Ice in thawing, also, absorbs the same 
quantity to convert it into a liquid. 
The quantity of water, therefore, on the globe, per¬ 
forms a most important office in equalizing its tem¬ 
perature. When the atmosphere is cooled to a tempera¬ 
ture below 32°—the freezing point of water—water 
will begin to freeze, and in freezing, it emits caloric 
enough for every pound of ice to raise another pound 
of water 140°, or to make it so hot that we could 
with difficulty bear our hand in it. Not that it could 
be made actually to heat a pound of water to this tem¬ 
perature, because its heat could not all be applied to 
it: but it modifies the temperature of the atmosphere, 
when below 32°, just as much for every pound ot water 
frozen as a pound of water would do, if heated 172°, 
and left to cool itself by radiation in the atmosphere, 
down to the freezing point. 
Were it not, therefore, for the vast quantity of wa¬ 
ter on the earth, we might be scorched by the sultry 
suns of summer, or fatally chilled by the piercing blasts 
of winter. Our polar regions during the semi-annual 
night would be wide wastes of dreary desolation.— 
Vegetation would be totally destroyed, and all or¬ 
ganic life, of whatever description, wholly laid waste. 
The return of day would bring with it the opposite 
extreme. The constant rays of the sun would ope¬ 
rate without any thing on which to spend their force. 
As a consequence, the temperature of the earth would 
be very highly raised—probably above what organized 
life could possibly bear. As it is, water operates as 
a check to either excessive heat or cold, by receiving 
caloric and giving it out as nature requires. 
Thus water forms a vast repository, (if I may so 
speak,) for this most important principle in nature, 
heat: without which, our globe would be but a mass 
of totally dead matter. When the sun retires to the 
southern hemisphere, and the temperature of our cli¬ 
mate is reduced by the earth’s radiation, so that ve¬ 
getation is stopped, nature draws on her deposites in 
our oceans and rivers, by consolidating water to ice, 
so that the temperature of our atmosphere is prevent¬ 
ed from becoming so much below the freezing point 
of water as it would were there no water, or were 
that water incapable of being frozen. When again 
the sun returns to vivify our hemisphere, the same 
quantity of heat is again returned to the water, by 
thawing the ice, and thus the deposite is made good. 
As summer advances, and the rays of the sun might 
produce so much heat as to be deleterious to organic 
life, (as undoubtedly would be the case, were there 
nothing to counteract it,) water steps in again and 
undergoes another change. By this, its effects are 
still greater than in the preceding. In the transfor¬ 
mation of water to vapor, about 1000° of heat are 
absorbed, and that vapor may still be no hotter than 
the water from which it was formed. That is, a pound 
of vapor contains about five times as much heat as 
a pound of water, at its usual temperature in sum¬ 
mer, when both are apparently at the same tempera¬ 
ture, and the thermometer would be alike affected 
by each. Evaporation is that process, of which heat 
is the actuating principle, that keeps up the constant 
circulation of the waters of the earth—that causes a 
continual flow of our rivers, which, continually dis¬ 
charging their contents into the ocean, never fill it; 
and that waters our fields, with refreshing showers to 
supply the wants of the vegetable and animal king¬ 
doms. In a warm summer’s day, vast quantities of 
water are vaporized. The Mediterranean sea, not¬ 
withstanding it receives the waters of numerous large 
rivers, still receives a constant supply from the main 
ocean at the straits of Gibralter, to keep up its con¬ 
tinual evaporation. 
There is no natural phenomenon, if we will study 
it and trace it to its causes, in which we cannot dis¬ 
cover, in some degree, finite as are our powers, the 
wisdom of the Great Architect of Nature. This pro¬ 
perty of equalizing the temperature of our atmos¬ 
phere, is not the only particular, in which this wis¬ 
dom may be discovered in water. Were it not for its 
property of containing latent heat, all at once, on the 
approach of winter, our rivers, lakes and oceans would 
become so many frozen and solid masses. Not a li¬ 
quid drop of water could be found when the atmos¬ 
phere was below 32° Fahrenheit. Again, on the re¬ 
turn of spring, these masses of ice would assume 
their liquidity in as short a time as they were before 
congealed. Snows from our mountains and hills would, 
almost instantly, as soon as the atmosphere became 
warmer than 32°, tumble in torrents from their sides, 
which would deluge every lower country and sweep 
every thing within their reach. As it is, when wa¬ 
ter is freezing, it is done very gradually; for there is 
a great quantity of heat to be radiated, even after it 
is so much cooled as to be cold as ice: and when the 
ice thaws, it has, not only to be heated, so that it is 
as warm as water is, before it will freeze, but it must 
receive 140° additional heat which remains latent in, 
or combined with the water, before it can be liquidat¬ 
ed ; and then it thaws as gradually as it freezes ; and 
immediately after it is thawed, a thermometer placed 
in the water will not rise above what it was in the ice. 
Another striking property of water, in which im¬ 
portant consequences to us are involved, is, its being, 
when at a certain temperature, expanded by cold, in 
opposition to the general law of heat—water being, 
(I believe,) the only exception to that law. Water 
when cooled below 40° Fahrenheit, ceases to contract, 
in conformity to the general law, and expands as it is 
cooled below this point. Were it not for this property, 
in spite of its capacity for heat, it is probably that all 
the water in temperate climates, where we have a 
tolerable long winter, would be congealed in solid 
masses, so that all the heat of a summer’s sun would 
not be sufficient to thaw it. 
“ Ice is the natural state of waterand with equal 
propriety we might say, that a solid is the natural 
state of every substance. Without heat, the great 
vivifying principle in nature, and as it has been styled 
“ the life and soul of the universe,” the most volatile 
substances would condense to a degree of which we 
can form no conception. It is perhaps not impossible, 
extravagant as it may appear, that the hypothesis of 
Newton, that our world might he compressed into the 
compass of a cubic inch, would be realized by the to¬ 
tal absence of heat alone. It is heat that keeps the 
gases in their gaseous state, that makes water liquid, 
and keeps our atmosphere from becoming solid, as 
really as it is heat by which we can reduce the metals 
to liquids, and make water assume the form of air. 
Philosophers have never yet been able to produce a 
substance totally void of heat, and it is reasonable to 
infer, that they never can; so that it is not possible 
to conceive the effects which cold, strictly speaking, 
would produce. 
What the matter, or substance of heat is, does not 
come within the scope of our inquiry. It is a pro¬ 
blem which has never yet been satisfactorily solved. 
We can study its phenomena and observe its effects; 
but we must remain, for the present at least, in the 
dark as to what heat is. It is known to possess vast 
expansive power. Certainly we can no longer ques¬ 
tion this power, when we are assured that it is the 
only force which can compete successfully with at¬ 
traction. It is heat that keeps our globe distended 
to its present dimensions; and heat that drives our 
steam-boats and rail-road cars. It is heat that makes 
such a strong and delightful contrast between the 
gloomy desolation of winter, and the blithesomeness 
and verdure of spring and summer. It is heat by 
which we are enabled to overcome the strong cohe¬ 
sive attraction in the metals, and reduce them to li¬ 
quids and dispel them in vapor. And, indeed, it is 
probable that, by a sufficient quantity of heat, every 
substance, even the most dense in nature, might be 
made to undergo the same successive changes which 
would result in their conversion into “ thin air.” 
From the foregoing we learn the following facts for 
practical application. 
1. The man who burns green wood, does it at a 
great loss. For, as green wood contains about one- 
third its weight of sap and water, enough heat must 
be employed to convert these liquids into steam and 
dispel them. Now all steam contains about 1000° 
heat, which is not sensible, and consequently cannot 
be of any use in warming the apartment. 
2. The man who would heat his water hotter, af¬ 
ter it boils in an open vessel, is foolishly wasting fuel. 
For all surplus heat, over enough to make it boil, is 
rendered latent in the vapor which is dispelled. 
3. VYe learn also, why those towns adjacent to the 
sea and islands possess a greater uniformity of tem¬ 
perature than those places farther inland, and more 
remote from any large collection of water. 
4. The above theory is practically acted upon, when 
gardeners, (as they sometimes do,) to preserve fruit 
trees from the effects of frost, connect them with 
straw ropes, having their ends immersed in a tub of 
water : and also by sprinkling vegetables with water 
in the evening, when there is a prospect of frost. 
5. Substances which freeze at a temperature below 
32°, as potatoes, apples, &c. may be prevented from 
freezing, by keeping them with water near them, m 
a confined situation. As long as any water remains 
uncongealed, such substances are Bafe. P. 
Albany, Nov. 1838. 
Remedy for Sprains, Bruises, &c. 
As it frequently happens that severe swellings oc¬ 
cur from bruises, sprains, &c., I take the liberty of 
sending you a recipe which has, in various instances 
within my own sphere of observation, produced the 
most rapid and extraordinary relief. It was tried a 
few days ago, upon the foot of a gentleman who was 
suffering agony from a violent sprain and afforded 
instantaneous relief. I have used it with great suc¬ 
cess in dispelling fistulous swellings upon horses. It 
has never with me failed to reduce the swelling, un¬ 
less pus had formed. Its simplicity has caused it to 
be rejected by some, but as it can do no harm, and as 
the materials are at hand, it can at least be tried. It 
is a mixture of one pint of soft soap ; a pint of good 
vinegar ; a handful of common salt, and a table spoon¬ 
ful of powdered nitre ; put them into a common white 
basin and bathe the part affected. I have never used 
it where the skin is abraded, as most probably vio¬ 
lent pain would ensue. If, upon trial, you deem it 
worthy of publication, I shall be pleased to see it in 
the pages of the widely circulating Cultivator. 
T. F. NELSON. 
Virginia, Oct. 26, 1838. 
A Looking-Glass. 
J. Buel, Esq.—Dear Sir—When I was a boy, I 
can well remember how I used to be induced to wash 
my smutty face, by having a looking-glass held be¬ 
fore my eyes. For the same purpose, I have extracted 
the following picture of “ a farmer,” from the writ¬ 
ings of that most eccentric and excellent writer, 
“ Samuel Slick,” in the hopes that if any of your rea¬ 
ders should happen to see any part of himself therein, 
that he will improve by the view. Here it is. 
“* * * That critter, when he built that wrack of 
a house, (they call ’em a half house here,) intended 
to add as much more to it some of these days, and ac¬ 
cordingly put his chimbley outside, to sarve the new 
part as well as the old. He has been too “busy” 
ever since, you see, to remove the banking put there 
the first fall, to keep the frost out of the cellar, and 
consequently it has rotted the sills offi and the house 
has fell away from the chimbley, and he has had to 
prop it up with that great stick of timber, to keep it 
from coming down on its knees altogether. All the 
winders are boarded up, but one, and that might as 
well be, for little light can penetrate them old hats 
and red flannel petticoats. Look at the barn ; its 
broken back roof has let the gable eends fall in, where 
they stand staring at each other, as if they would like 
to come closer together (and no doubt they soon will,) 
to consult what was best to be done to gain their 
standing in the world. Now look at the stock; there’s 
your “ improved short horns.” Them dirty looking, 
half starved geese, and them draggle-tailed fowls that 
are so poor the foxes would be ashamed to steal them 
—that little lantern jawed, long leg’d, rabbit ear’d 
runt of a pig, that’s so weak it cant curl its tail up 
—that old cow frame standing there with her eyes 
shut, and looking for all the world as tho’ she’s con¬ 
templating her latter eend—(and with good reason too,) 
and that other reddish yellow, long wooled varmint, 
with his hocks higher than his belly, that looks as if 
he had come to her funeral, and which by way of dis¬ 
tinction, his owner calls a horse—is all “ the stock,” 
I guess, that this farmer supports upon a hundred 
acres of as good natural soil as ever laid out door.— 
Now there’s a specimen of “Native Stock.” I ree- 
koon he’l imigrate to a warmer climate soon, for you 
see while he was waiting to finish that thing you see 
the hen’s roosting on, that he calls a sled, he’s had 
to burn up all the fence round the house, but there’s 
