The star of Pascagoula. [volume] (Pascagoula, Miss.) 1873-1878, 1877-02-02

Water is the most abundant and the
most necessary for living beings except
air. What water is mankind never
knew until ninety-five years ago. In
1871 the experiments of LavOlster COM
pleted those of Cavendlsh IN lfto ana OF
Volta in 1777, and revealed the true ma
ture of water. Humboldt Gay-Lassac,
ana Dumas have since confirmed and
developed Lavoisier's discovery. We
now know that water Is not AN ele-
ment," as Thales and Aristotle taught,
and as all believed for more than twelve
centuries; but that it is composed OF two
gases. oxygen and hydrogen. Nine parts
of water consist of eight parts OF oxygen
and one of hydrogen, When chemically
pure, water contains nothing else. Pure
water, however, does not eXlstln nature.
II dissolyes salt, it melts away rocks, 1t
absorbs the gases of the air, oxygen, nitro
gen and carbonic acid; it contains COM
mon salt. sulphate OF lime and calcareous
matter-in one word, it contains all that
is soluble upon earth, Moreover, water
not only pourishes plants and Stakes
thirst, but it almost entirely constitutes
the tree of the forest, the fruit and seeds
| of those trees, and the bodies of every
living thing.
The extent to which water mingles
with bodies apparently the most solid is
truly wonderful. The glittering opaI
which beauty wears as an ornament II
only flint and water. Of every 1,20C
tons of earth which a farmer has in his
estate 400 are water. The snow-capped
submits of our highest mountains have
many million tons of water in a solo
form. In every plaster of paris statue
which an Italian carries through oul
streets for sale there is one pound Of
water to four pounds of chalk. The all
we breathe contains five grains of water
TO each cubic foot of its bulk. The pc
tatoes and turnips which are boiled foi
our dinner have in their raw state, the
one seventy-tive per cent. n the other
ninety per cent. of water.
If a man weighing n hundred and
forty pounds were squeezed in a hydrau
lie press seventy pounds of water would
run out, the balance being solid matter
A man is, chemically speaking, torty-five
mounds of carbon and other elements
with nitrogen diffused through five and
a half pailtuls of water, thus mingling nc
less wonderfully. A sunfower evap'
crates one and ore-fourth pints OF water
a day, and a cabbage about the SAINT
quantity.
Without water the whole earth, Hima
Iayas and Andes included, would be but
a gigantic heap of dry powder, on which
not even the most lichen could exist
With the disappearance of water all or
ganic life would perish.
1t i. a mistake to suppose that water
because it contains animalculR or con
fervse, is necessarily unwholsome. How
ever repugnant it may be to use watel
containing these foreign bodies, it is onl.
when they are dead and putrid than dan
ger arises from their presence.
. The color OF water has frequently been
discussed by physicists. Arago said
The reflected color of water Is blue anC
the transmitted color IS green " and ex
plained " the green color of waves b.
considering them as prisms of water, o
which one OF the faces reflects whit,
Iigbt. which is reiracted by the following
wave and thus goes forth green" Bun
~, asserts that water chemically pure j
mo- coloriess, hut is Of q pure blue color
N. Wettstein, after minute chemical re
searches, states that the green color !
due 10 the presence Of arssR'e matters