1349. Water is a compound of oxygen and hydrogen gas, though primarily reckoned a simple or elementary substance. 'If the metal called potassium be exposed in a glass tube to a small quantity of water, it will act upon it with great violence; elastic fluid will be disengaged, which will be found to be hydrogen; and the same effects will be produced upon the potassium, as if it had absorbed a small quantity of oxygen; and the hydrogen disengaged and the oxygen added to the potassium, are in weight as 1 to 8; and if two in volume of hydrogen, and one in volume of oxygen, which have the weights of 1 and 8, be introduced into a close vessel, and an electrical spark passed through them, they will inflame, and condense into 9 parts of pure water.'
