A plate of glass, covered on one side with tin foil, has much dew on the naked side when uppermost, and none, when the covered side is uppermost, of equal dewy nights. The foil acquires electric matter from the ground, which the glass or naked upper side receives and retains; but when the naked side is next the ground, the portion of electric matter it acquires is conducted off by the foil at top; and as where there is no electric matter there is no dew, the upper coated side is dry, and under circumstances which would have left much dew on the glass side if uppermost. Within the animal system various aqueous fluids and humidities are formed, and, as in the former instances, without oxygen and hydrogen being present; namely, hydrocephalus, the stomach juices, liquor pericardium, water of blister, milk, tears: to these add the juices of fruit, the chymists' aqueous fluids, together with the variety of formative modes, and the complex constitution of water remains unquestionable. Lavoisier's experiments proved the same, by the endless variety in the residue and product, from decomposing and recomposing the same water several times. Davy states, that, when experimenting on different substances, water frequently appeared, when there was nothing sensibly present to which it could be attributed, if not to nitrogen, which disappeared simultaneously with the water appearing: electric matter is everywhere present, although not sensibly discoverable. From which it is obvious that the alchymists of old mistook the road to _El Dorado_. Instead of aiming at turning the grosser metals into gold, they should have alchymised on water, taking its elements as the money-changer does those of the numeration table, and by the rules of transposition made the valueless stand in the place of most value. Water in the boiler loses electric matter to the fire beneath, and is expanded by influent medium of space; the excess of the latter throws out the elements of the superior stratum, which, with an enormous influx of medium of space, are the constituents of steam and the power of steam. The so-acquired medium of space, by the pressure from without which it is under, is the cause of the elasticity and force of steam. Steam is not water, nor is it ever condensed by "cold." It consists in the elements of water, less that which the water lost to the fire: both, with a reduced or proportional quantity of medium of space, make the original stratum of water. What but electric matter can steam receive from the pipes it may be passed through, and is discharged from as water? Insulated, "centrifugally repellant heat," without fulcrum, is a most inconsiderable substitute for _the pressure of nature_ by the all-pervading medium of space, and but a shadowy substitute in accounting for the powerful effects of steam. There is no repellant force in the flame of a candle; and what but influent medium of space can make a pint of water fill and overflow a quart vessel.