Page:Various Forces of Matter.djvu/103

Rh will put a candle under that jar, and you will see how soon the water is produced (fig. 30). Look at that dimness on the sides of the glass, which will soon produce drops, and trickle down into the plate. Well, that dimness and these drops are water, formed by the union of the oxygen of the air with the hydrogen existing in the wax of which that candle is formed.

And now, having brought you in the first place to the consideration of chemical attraction, I must enlarge your ideas so as to include all substances which have this attraction for each other—for it changes the character of bodies, and alters them in this way and that way, in the most extraordinary manner; and produces other phenomena wonderful to think about. Here is some chlorate of potash, and there some sulphuret of antimony. We will mix these two different sets of particles together, and I want to show you in a general sort of way, some of the phenomena which take place when we make different particles act together. Now I can make these bodies act upon each other in several ways. In this case I am going to apply heat to the mixture, but if I were to give a blow with a hammer the same result