BY PROF. J. T. EDWARDS, D.D.
Director of the Chautauqua School of Experimental Science.
In our day science invades the kitchen. Knowledge knocks at the sitting room door. Literature and art visit the parlor of even our humble homes. To do anything in furtherance of popular education is a delight. Mine be the task of making the laboratory and the home better acquainted.
The limitations of an article for The Chautauquan cause the first embarrassment. One must at once become an eclectic, and select wisely the best from a wide field. The next difficulty is to give coherency and classification to the truths selected. Upon what golden cord shall we arrange the shining truths?
Let us use an ancient, though incorrect classification of elements: Water, air, earth, fire, adding another, organisms. Indeed, this is about the division of matter which the common people make to-day, although chemists tell us that neither of these is an element, and that the simple, indivisible substances in nature are sixty-six in number. As chemistry and physics are so closely related, we shall consider each of these topics from the standpoint of both these sciences. This will call for ten articles, on the following subjects: Chemistry of Water; Physics of Water; Chemistry of Air; Physics of Air; Chemistry of Fire; Physics of Fire; Chemistry of Earth; Physics of Earth; Chemistry of Organisms; Physics of Organisms.
CHEMISTRY OF WATER. H₂O.
FORMS OF WATER CRYSTALLIZED.
Do not be disturbed by these cabalistic symbols; they are simply the chemist’s name for water; a most expressive name, too, as we shall presently discover. Some names are misnomers. Abel Blackman may be both weak and a white man. Our letters can not mislead. They abbreviate, show the class of each substance, the elements that form it, and their proportions. Berzelius devised this mode of naming. (Who was Berzelius?)
On the table stands a glass of water. How beautiful it is! Even diamonds, costliest of gems, are valued in proportion as they possess its marvelous clearness, those of the “first water” being most highly prized. We are now to speak of some of the chemical properties of water; hereafter we shall consider the physical characteristics.