QUEER NEWS ABOUT WATER

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 661, 14 January 1933, Page 18 (Supplement)

QUEER NEWS ABOUT WATER

A remarkable thing has been discovered in the last few years about water. We think of water, in its ordinary familiar form, as a pure and simple thing; but it would now seem that we must regard water scientifically as being made up of three kinds of molecules, the actions of which have some curious results. Water exists, as we all know, in three states—gaseous as in water-vapour, or steam; fluid as in ordinary drinking water, or in condensed steam; and solid as in ice. We are accustomed to think of water as something quite separate in state from solid ice and gaseous steam, but all ordinary water at ordinary temperature is really a mixture of steam, ice and water proper. According to this discovery, a molecule of steam is made up of two molecules of hydrogen, and one of oxygen, and steam has been given the distinctive name of Hydrol. Water proper is made up of two molecules of steam and is now called Dihydrol. Ice is made up of three molecules of steam and is now called Trihydrol. Now, when water freezes and begins to solidify, the crystallising process takes place round the molecules of ice already scattered through the water, and, accordingly, if the ice is removed as it is formed, the water is deprived of many of these free ice molecules, and crystallisation is more difficult. A very interesting experiment illustrating this was performed a year or two ago at the Ice Research Institute at Morrisburg, Ontario. Water in a tank was cooled to ten degrees below freezing. Within half an hour a pailful of ice was formed, and was removed. After that a whole hour was required to freeze another pailful of ice, and when that pailful was removed two hours were required to produce a pailful. Then, when that was removed, no more ice appeared for four hours. All this certainly seemed to show that ice molecules must be present as a nucelus for ice to form round, and that water without such molecules would not freeze readily. But a further extraordinary fact was discovered. It was found that if the water from which the ice had been abstracted was raised to room temperature and cooled down again to below freezing-point, icp was immediately formed. It would seem from this that molecules of ice are formed more quickly at higher temperatures than at lower ones, and that we can accelerate the formation of ice by warming icycold water. That is certainly something very unexpected.

Now listen to this one: “Never drink to the dregs,” but “ Waste not, want not 1 ”