Page:Various Forces of Matter.djvu/105

Rh see, I have no doubt, a certain amount of change. Look, they are already becoming milky, but they are sluggish in their action—not quick as the others were—for we have endless varieties of rapidity in chemical action. Now, if I mix them together, and stir them so as to bring them properly together, you will soon see what a different result is produced. As I mix them they get thicker and thicker, and you see the liquid is hardening and stiffening, and before long I shall have it quite hard; and before the end of the lecture it will be a solid stone—a wet stone no doubt, but more or less solid—in consequence of the chemical affinity. Is not this changing two liquids into a solid body a wonderful manifestation of chemical affinity?

There is another remarkable circumstance in chemical affinity, which is that it is capable of either waiting or acting at once. And this is very singular, because we know of nothing of the kind in the forces either of gravitation or cohesion. For instance, here are some oxygen particles, and here is a lump of carbon particles. I am going to put the carbon particles into the oxygen; they can act, but they do not—they