the water which is formed will be sufficient for its saturation with aqueous vapour. This may be learnt from the fact that drops of water are visible on the sides of the eudiometer after the mercury has risen in it. If there be none, a certain quantity of water must be introduced into the eudiometer. Then the number of millimetres expressing the pressure of the vapour corresponding with the temperature of the experiment must be subtracted from the atmospheric pressure at which the remaining gas is measured, otherwise the result will be inaccurate (Chap. I. Note 1). This is essentially the method of the determination of the composition of water which was made for the first time by Gay-Lussac and Humboldt with sufficient accuracy. Their determinations led them to the conclusion that water consists of two volumes of hydrogen (more exactly 2·003, Le Duc 1892), and one volume of oxygen. Every time they took a greater quantity of oxygen, the gas remaining after the explosion was oxygen. When they took an excess of hydrogen, the remaining gas was hydrogen; and when the oxygen and hydrogen were taken in exactly the above proportion, neither one nor the other remained. The composition of water was thus definitely confirmed. [33] Concerning this application of the eudiometer, see the chapter on Nitrogen. It may be mentioned as illustrating the various uses of the eudiometer that Prof. Timeraseeff employed microscopically small eudiometers to analyse the bubbles of gas given off from the leaves of plants.