Water

a common liquid. It was long considered one of the four fundamental elements--air, fire, water, and earth--but during the eighteenth century it was definitely determined that water is composed of two gases, hydrogen and oxygen, and that these elements combine in the proportion of two volumes of hydrogen to one volume of oxygen, or two parts of the former by weight to sixteen of the latter. Pure water is without color or taste. A small quantity is without color, but it is blue in the mass. Water changes the direction of slant light. Unless one is looking directly downward into the water, a fish is lower and nearer the observer than seems to be the case. Water is 770 times as heavy as air. It has its greatest density at 39.2 deg. F. It solidifies or forms ice at 32 deg. F. and boils or vaporizes at 212 deg. F. The point of greatest density is important, in that cool water sinks before reaching the freezing point, thus delaying the formation of surface ice; while ice, being lighter than cool water, floats and delays the downward progress of frost. Were ice denser than water, as is the case in most corresponding liquids and solids, it would sink to the bottom as fast as made. Northern waters would freeze from the bottom up, and would never thaw out. Water is a powerful solvent, that is to say, it dissolves many substances. Even rain water and snow catch and dissolve dust in descending through the air. Ordinary water is impregnated with minerals. Arctic snow and alpine lakes in granite lake beds contain the purest water. Lime and many other minerals not only give water taste and sparkle, but are essential to the health of users. Water that contains over eight grains of mineral matter to the gallon is called hard water. It is more conducive to health than soft water, but water that contains animal or vegetable matter is dangerous.

Water combines chemically with a large number of substances. It is a constituent of nearly all minerals, even to the hardest stone, and of all vegetable and animal tissues. A table of the percentages of water in ordinary garden vegetables varies only from 89 per cent in cabbages to 96 per cent in cucumbers, and in fruits from 78 per cent in plums and 82 per cent in apples to 89 per cent in strawberries and 93 per cent in watermelons. Bananas contain 74 per cent of water, twenty-six pounds to 100 being solid food. Nuts are highly concentrated food. They contain but five per cent of water. Water forms the greater part of blood and of sap. It is the great carrier of the animal and the vegetable kingdom. The world could get on seemingly without gold, very possibly several elements might be spared, but without water all life would be a dead cinder beyond the possibility of revival. Twenty-three thirty-seconds of the earth's surface is covered with water to an average depth of between 12,000 and 13,000 feet. Ocean water contains about thirty-five pounds to the thousand of common salt. The supply of fresh water from rainfall varies from 600 inches a year in some localities to others with a mere trace.

Water occupies a large place in literature. It is employed in various religious ceremonies as baptism and sprinkling. Among the Hebrews it is the symbol of purity. Among the Hindus it is the symbol of fertility. The Taoists of China and Japan regard water as the symbol of humility, because it always seeks the lowest place. There is a common saying that "water always runs down hill."

See Waste; Ozone; Artesian Wells; Typhoid; Rainfall; Hydrogen; Waters; Waterworks; Waterpower