Michael Faraday

“ See how the very wax itself burns, and falls down in a dazzling stream of fire, so powerfully does the oxygen support combustion. Again, here is another experiment which will serve to illustrate the force, if I may so call it, of oxygen. I have here a circular flame of spirit of wine, and with it I am about to show you the way in which iron burns, because it will serve very well as a comparison between the effect produced by air and oxygen. If I take this ring flame, I can shake, by means of a sieve, the fine particles of iron filings through it, and you will see the way in which they burn. ”

“ And now we have another point to examine, and this water is again a very good substance to take as an illustration (as philosophers we call it all water, even though it be in the form of ice or steam) . Why is this water hard? [pointing to a block of ice] ; because the attraction of the particles to each other is sufficient to make them retain their places in opposition to force applied to it. But what happens when we make the ice warm? Why, in that case we diminish to such a large extent the power of attraction that the solid substance is destroyed altogether. ”

“ Chemical affinity depends entirely upon the energy with which particles of different kinds attract each other. Oxygen and hydrogen are particles of different kinds, and it is their attraction to each other which makes them chemically combine and produce water. ”

“ Now this liquid ether, if exposed to a very low temperature, will become a solid; but if we apply heat to it, it becomes vapor; and I want to show you the enormous bulk of the substance in this new form: when we make ice into water, we lessen its bulk; but when we convert water into steam, we increase it to an enormous extent. You see it is very clear that as I apply heat to the liquid diminish its attraction of cohesion ”

“ We have means of searching into the constitution of water beyond any that are afforded us by the action of heat, and among these one of the most important is that force which we call voltaic electricity, which we used at our last meeting for the purpose of obtaining light, and which we carried about the room by means of these wires. ”

“ See how I am converting the water into vapor; and if I take a little vessel (E) , and fill it with water, and put it into the trough over the end of the tube (D) , there goes the vapor ascending into the vessel. And yet that is not steam, for you know that if steam is brought near cold water, it would at once condense, and return back again to water; this, then, can not be steam, for it is bubbling through the cold water in this trough; but it is a vaporous substance, and we must therefore examine it carefully, to see in what way the water has been changed. ”

“ You see the iron sinking into it; and while part of the solid water is becoming liquid, the heat of the ball is rapidly going off. A certain part of the water is actually rising in steam, the attraction of some of the particles is so much diminished that they can not even hold together in the liquid form, but escape as vapor. At the same time, you see I can not melt all this ice by the heat contained in this ball. ”

“ In this vessel (C) we can go on making from water a large bulk of permanent gas, as we call it, and then we can reconvert it into water in this way. [Mr. Anderson brought in another Leyden jar, which, however, from some cause, would not ignite the gas. It was therefore recharged, when the explosion took place in the desired manner.] How beautifully we get our results when we are right in our proceedings! It is not that Nature is wrong when we make a mistake. ”