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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1851 Excerpt: ...gallon hold? How much the American? distilled water. One cubic inch at 60 and 30 inches baro. meter weighs 252-458 grains, which is 815 times as much as a like bulk of atmospheric air. One hundred cubic inches of aqueous vapor, at 212 and 30 inches barometer, weigb 14-96 grains, and its specific gravity is 0-6202. 405. Water boils under ordinary circumstances at 212; but we have seen (119) that its boiling point was very much affected by the nature of the vessel. Since the first part of this volume was printed we are lately informed, that water may be heated even to 275, provided it be perfectly free from air, and that this is the case even in a vacuum. It evaporates at all (129) temperatures. 406. Pure water is never found on the surface of the earth, for the purest natural waters contain small quanties of earthy or saline matters which they have dissolved from the rocks and soil. Moreover, all good water--that which is fit for the use of man--has a considerable quantity of carbonic acid and atmospheric air dissolved in it, and without which it would be flat and unpalatable. Many mineral springs, besides the saline matters they hold in solution, are highly charged with sulphureted hydrogen, carbonic acid gas, and other gases derived from decomposition, in the strata through which they pass. 407. Pure water can be procured only by distillation, and it is a substance of such indispensable importance to the chemist, that every well furnished labratory is provided with means for its abundant preparation. A copper still, well tinned, and connected with a pure block-tin worm or condenser, answers very well to produce the common supply. But very accurate operations require it to be again distilled in clean vessels of hard glass. The solvent powers of pure water a...