The Rhode Island Republican

Miscellany.

From the N. Y. Advocate.

Water.--Water is a compound of two invisible substances hydrogen and oxygen, In the proportion of 15 parts of the first and 85 parts of the latter, in every 100 parts. It appears impossible to unite these two gases in any other proportion in the formation of water. As water does not permit any property of oxygen or hydrogen to be perceived, no doubt they combine at a point, at which their reciprocal affinity exerts its greatest effect. They may then be compared to a neutral salt, in which the acid and alkaline properties have equally become latent. Water contains a vast quantity of caloric, or fire. Take any quantity of ice or snow 32 deg. and mix it with an equal weight of water heated to 172 deg. The snow will immediately melt and the temperature will remain at 32 deg. Here the water is cooled 140 deg. while that of the snow is not increased at all. The heat has combined with the ice or snow to render it fluid, but has not increased its temperature. Water then, after being cooled down to 32 deg. cannot freeze till it has parted with 140 degrees of heat. And ice after being heated to 32 deg. which is the freezing point. cannot melt till it has absorbed 140 deg. more of caloric. There can be no doubt, then, that water owes its fluidity to its latent caloric; and that its caloric of fluidity is 140 deg. Vapor is water combined with a still greater quantity of caloric. However long we boil water in an open vessel, we cannot make it any hotter than the boiling point. Let this fact be remembered. There are many cooks who think that they facilitate their culinary operations by increasing the fire under their utensils; this is a mistake; when water boils they get all the advantages of heat, and may save much wood by knowing this fact. When arrived at the boiling point or 212 degrees, the caloric combines with the steam which carries it off as fast as it is generated. It is the expansive force of steam or water when surcharged with caloric, the motion called boiling is to be ascribed. The decomposition of water, by galvanism or electricity which produces an intense heat, clearly shows that there is a point at which water cannot exist but in which it is reduced to its two original elements. This must appear obvious in every one who has regarded the evaporation of water when boiling, as it escapes in invisible form; hence the phrase of "the pot boiling down."
Water is partially decomposed in casks on long voyages. The wood combines with its elements, forming among other impurities carbonated hydrogen; hence the disagreeable taste and smell. This is one of the evils we complain of in this city, and one that I am most anxious should be speedily removed by substituting cast iron pipes for the wood ones, through which the water is conveyed.
Nature appears to have other methods of decomposing water. All vegetables decompose water, by a secret method peculiar to themselves. Fish in general, and all cold blooded animals, I have no doubt possess the same faculty. Rondelet says, 'there has been a fish kept three years in a glass vessel, and fed only with water; and that it became too large to live in the vessel.' If we deny it the power of decomposing water, whence the increase of animal substance? The formation of thunder clouds, and the torrents of rain which usually follow, most probably arise from a sudden combustion of hydrogen and oxygen gases. Hydrogen emanates from, and is the consequence of every species of animal and vegetable decay or putrefaction. Carbonated hydrogen gas is perpetually evolved at the surface of the earth; and every chemist who possesses a grain of reason, knows that it is fatal to animal life. The great author of the world has contrived to protect its inhabitants from its baneful influence, by so constituting vegetables that carbon and hydrogen, are their necessary food, and contribute to the support of all vegetable life.
I now come to the point, and shall demonstrate to the satisfaction of every man of science, who takes nature and its laws as a rule of right and guide of reason, that the yellow fever is produced exclusively by inhaling large doses of carbonated hydrogen gas, as it has been evolved by the putrescent, or destructive fermentative of vegetable and animal matter during the hot summer months. I shall show that no case of fever has originated where there was a supply of living vegetable matter to seize upon this gas, and neutralize its powers; that the higher parts of the city, the village of Greenwich, the whole of the neighboring towns, villages, and surrounding country, have been exempt from the yellow fever, though they have been subjected to as great heat as this city--Here then we have demonstration of my doctrine. They have much purer water than we, but near the quantity of hydrogen gas is evolved, and what is evolved, is instantly seized upon by the luxuriant vegetation, and converted into vegetable matter, while the oxygen is thrown off to renovate the atmosphere, by its union with the nitrogen, rejected by animal respiration. Here you may learn the use of low temperature, or "black frost," in stopping the yellow fever. Hydrogen is thrown off only, in quantity, during a high temperature, while water and vegetable matter is undergoing a decomposition I defy the world to show any other cause of malignant, or yellow fever. I shall continue to call the public attention to this subject, and, if I mistake not, I shall convince every theoretical pretender, whether he has an M. D. after his name or not, they have all mistaken the true source of the evil. The panic is over, the unsuspecting inhabitants have returned to their dwellings, and they now should be prepared to reason, and if they should point the finger of scorn at quacks, chemical pretenders, and medical knights-errant, it will not be my fault. The people most and shall know the truth.