Page:Various Forces of Matter.djvu/20

8 which we have to deal at present, generally or particularly, as I may require to illustrate my subject. Here is the sort of matter which we call water—it is there ice [pointing to a block of ice upon the table], there water—[pointing to the water boiling in a flask]—here vapour—you see it issuing out from the top [of the flask]. Do not suppose that that ice and that water are two entirely different things, or that the steam rising in bubbles and ascending in vapour there is absolutely different from the fluid water—it may be different in some particulars, having reference to the amounts of power which it contains; but it is the same, nevertheless, as the great ocean of water around our globe, and I employ it here for the sake of illustration, because if we look into it we shall find that it supplies us with examples of all the powers to which I shall have to refer. For instance, here is water—it is heavy; but let us examine it with regard to the amount of its heaviness, or its gravity. I have before me a little glass vessel and scales [nearly equipoised scales, one of which contained a half-pint glass vessel], and the glass vessel is at present the lighter of the two; but if I now take some