According to Chevreul, pure water alone can reduce organized substances to this state of softness ; although salt water, alcohol, ether, and oil, are also imbibed by dry animal textures. Moist animal tissues, by virtue of their porosity, allow soluble matters, which come into contact with them, to be

dissolved by the water which they contain, and which oils their pores : if the matters are already in solution, they are imparted by their solutions to the water of the

tissues. Gaseous substances are taken up in the same way. Water exists in nearly as large a proportion in vegetable as in animal substances.

Properties. Pure water, as has already been stated, is a transparent liquid without color, taste, or smell. Some have doubted whether it is entirely inodorous, from the fact that the camel, and some other animals, can scent water to a considerable distance, and also whether it can be called colorless, as all large masses of

water have a bluish-green color. This phenomenon is, however, probably owing to the presence of foreign matters. It refracts light powerfully, is a slow conductor

of heat, when its internal movements are prevented, and an imperfect conductor of electricity. It is almost incompressible, a pressure equal to 2000 atmospheres occasioning a diminution of only one-ninth of its bulk; or, when submitted to a compressing force equal to 30,000 lbs. on the square inch, 14 volumes of this fluid

are condensed into 13 volumes ; proving that it is elastic. Water being the substance most easily procured in every part of the earth in a state of purity, it has been chosen by universal consent, to represent the unit of the specific gravity of