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CHEMICAL AFFINITY.
Now when water is opened out in this way by means of the battery; which adds nothing to it materially, which takes nothing from it materially (I mean no matter, I am not speaking of force); which adds no matter to the water; it is changed in this way—the gas which you saw burning a little while ago, called hydrogen, is evolved in large quantity, and the other gas, oxygen, is evolved in only half the quantity; so that these two areas represent water, and these are always the proportions between the two gases.
| 1 Hydrogen. |
8 Oxygen. |
| ||||||
| 9 |
But oxygen is sixteen times the weight of the other—eight times as heavy as the particles of hydrogen in the water; and you therefore know that water is composed of nine parts by weight—one of hydrogen and eight of oxygen; thus:—
