Page:The fairy tales of science.djvu/12



The ancient doctrine of the four elements—Decomposition of wood—Universality of the mighty elements—Health and disease—The true elementary bodies—A burning candle—Fire the result of chemical action—The destroying element—Chemical compounds—Composition of combustible bodies—Air the great supporter of life Analysis of air—Uniformity of composition—Immensity of the atmosphere—Properties of carbonic acid—Ammonia Watery vapour—Compounds of nitrogen and oxygen—Carbonic oxide—Water in the liquid, solid, and aëriform states—Analysis and synthesis—Decomposition of water by potassium—Wonderful revelations—Water a product of combustion—Synthesis of water—Earth an indefinite substance—The sixty-three elements of the chemist Principal ingredients of earth—Silica, alumina, and lime—Salt, pyrites, and fluorspar—Metals and metalloids—Composition of plants and animals—The marvels of chemistry—True interpretation of the ancient dogma

The strange vicissitudes of particles of matter—A talking atom—His relatives—His existence as a rock-forming atom—First glimpse of the outer world—Sets out on his travels—Launched into the ocean—A roving life—The coral polype—Terrestrial mutations—The atom liberated by volcanic agency—The joys of an aerial atom—Plants of the carboniferous period—The atom again a captive—Coal—Modern career of the atom—His philosophical speculations

The nature of matter—Illustrations of its divisibility—The ultimate particles of a body never in actual contact—