This, therefore, leads us to the inquiry as to whether oxygen can do more than a certain amount of work. The oxygen there (fig. 30) cannot go on burning an unlimited quantity of candle, for that has gone out, as you see; and its amount of chemical attraction or affinity is just as strikingly limited: it can no more be fallen short of or exceeded than can the attraction of gravitation. You might as soon attempt to destroy gravitation, or weight, or all things that exist, as to destroy the exact amount of force exerted by this oxygen. And when I pointed out to you that 8 by weight of oxygen to 1 by weight of hydrogen went to form water, I meant this, that neither of them would combine in different proportions with the other; for you cannot get 10 of hydrogen to combine with 6 of oxygen, or 10 of oxygen to combine with 6 of hydrogen--it must be 8 of oxygen and 1 of hydrogen. Now, suppose I limit the action in this way: this piece of cotton wool burns, as you see, very well in the atmosphere; and I have known of cases of cotton-mills being fired as if with gunpowder, through the very finely-divided particles of cotton being diffused through the atmosphere in the mill, when it has sometimes happened that a flame has caught these raised particles, and it has run from one end of the mill to the other, and blown it up. That, then, is on account of the affinity which the cotton has for the oxygen; but suppose I set fire to this piece of cotton, which is rolled up tightly, it does not go on burning, because I have limited the supply of oxygen, and the inside is prevented from having access to the oxygen, just as it was in the case of the lead by the oxide. But here is some cotton which has been imbued with oxygen in a certain manner. I need not trouble you now with the way it is prepared; it is called gun-cotton.[21] See how that burns [setting fire to a piece]; it is very different from the other, because the oxygen that must be present in its proper amount is put there beforehand. And I have here some pieces of paper which are prepared like the gun-cotton[22], and imbued with bodies containing oxygen. Here is some which has been soaked in nitrate of strontia--you will see the beautiful red colour of its flame; and here is another which I think contains baryta, which gives that fine green light; and I have here some more which has been soaked in nitrate of copper--it does not burn quite so brightly, but still very beautifully. In all these cases the combustion goes on independent of the oxygen of the atmosphere. And here we have some gunpowder put into a case, in order to shew that it is capable of burning under water. You know that we put it into a gun, shutting off the atmosphere, with shot, and yet the oxygen which it contains supplies the particles with that without which chemical action could not proceed. Now, I have a vessel of water here, and am going to make the experiment of putting this fuse under the water, and you will