"Decompose" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The same, however, cannot be said of these so-called chemical waves that lie chiefly in the violet and ultra-violet end of the solar spectrum. What, then, is a chemical wave, its particular nature, and its exact properties? That we know it can decompose certain compounds, as Carbonic Acid Gas, CO2, and so give rise to chemical decomposition, has been proved by Professor Tyndall and others, but I have never yet seen any record of any attempt to find out what these chemical waves ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper
... is identically the same as that of all savage tribes which have not passed beyond the drum state of civilization, namely, a few huts huddled together and surrounded by a palisade of bamboo or cane. Since the pith would decompose in a short time, we should probably find that the wind, whirling across such a palisade of pipes—for that is what our bamboos would have turned to—would produce musical sounds, in fact, exactly the sounds that a large set of Pan's pipes would ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... brutes, the negroes give them a species of sepulture; and that is as described, by closing them up in vaults hewn in trunks of the baobab—and in my opinion a very comfortable kind of tomb it is. The bodies thus deposited do not decompose or decay as those buried in the ordinary way; on the contrary, from some preservative quality in the wood, or the atmosphere of the place, they become desiccated, or dried up very much after the manner of mummies, and in this state remain for ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... that every part in an organized whole is itself organized, and that, in analysing it to infinity, we must always meet with organized parts; although we may allow that the parts of the matter which we decompose in infinitum, may be organized. For the infinity of the division of a phenomenon in space rests altogether on the fact that the divisibility of a phenomenon is given only in and through this infinity, that is, an undetermined number of parts is given, while the parts themselves ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... was at once recognized by Sir Humphry Davy, who began experimenting immediately in this new field. He constructed a series of batteries in various combinations, with which he attacked the "fixed alkalies," the composition of which was then unknown. Very shortly he was able to decompose potash into bright metallic globules, resembling quicksilver. This new substance he named "potassium." Then in rapid succession the elementary substances sodium, calcium, strontium, and ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... in various ways—viz. by the action of heat, of acids, of various oxidising compounds. It is purified for weighing by boiling in neutral sulphite of soda (2 p.ct. solution) to remove sulphur, and in very dilute acids (0.33 p.ct. HCl) to decompose residues of 'organic' sulphur compounds. It may also be treated with dilute oxidants. After weighing it may be ignited to ...
— Researches on Cellulose - 1895-1900 • C. F. Cross
... The aurora borealis, which now rarely appears in northern regions, would become permanently visible and be fixed at the Pole. It would give out, not only light, as at present, but also heat. It would decompose the sea water by the creation of citric boreal acid and convert it into a kind of lemonade which would dispense with the necessity of provisioning ships with fresh water. Oranges would grow in Siberia and tame whales would pull becalmed sailing-ships. ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... the active contraction of the muscular walls of the abdomen; this never empties the bladder, however, and the oiled hand introduced through the rectum may feel the soft, flabby organ still half full of urine. This retained urine is liable to decompose and give off ammonia, which dissolves the epithelial cells, exposing the raw, mucous membrane and causing the worst type of cystitis. Suppression and incontinence of urine are common also to obstruction of the urethra by stone or otherwise; hence ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... with avidity, and that the gold thus treated resisted amalgamation with mercury. Mr. Skey proved the act of absorption of sulphur by gold to be a chemical act, and that electricity was generated in sufficient quantity and intensity during the process to decompose metallic solutions. Sulphur in certain forms had long been known to exercise a prejudicial effect upon the amalgamation of gold, but this had always been attributed to the combination of the sulphur with the quicksilver used. Now, however, it is certain ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... distance is to make colors merge into one another, to lower the values, but not all equally. Yellow loses itself first, tending toward white. The effect of distance, in general, is to disintegrate and decompose, thus giving "vibration" as it is called. A knowledge of these and kindred facts will save the architect from many disappointments and enable him to obtain wonderful chromatic effects by ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... the Chalicodoma grub is none the less alive. The primrose tint and the glossy skin are unequivocal signs of health: Were it really dead, it would, in less than twenty-four hours, turn a dirty brown and, soon after, decompose into a fluid putrescence. Now here is the marvelous thing: during the fortnight, roughly, that the Anthrax' meal lasts, the butter color of the larva, an unfailing symptom of the presence of life, continues unaltered and does not change into brown, the sign of ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... we may cause the current to effect chemical decomposition at a distance from the battery. Let it, for example, decompose water into oxygen and hydrogen. The heat generated in the battery under these circumstances by the combustion of a given weight of zinc falls short of what is produced when there is no decomposition. How far short? The question admits of a perfectly exact answer. When the oxygen and hydrogen ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... and useless gas in an arrangement like this is the nitrogen of the air, which being in large quantities does act as a serious diluent. To diminish the proportion of nitrogen, steam is often injected as well as air. The glowing coke can decompose the steam, forming carbonic oxide and hydrogen, both combustible. But of course no extra energy can be gained by the use of steam in this way; all the energy must come from the coke, the steam being already a perfectly burned product; the use of steam is merely to serve as ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 586, March 26, 1887 • Various
... are kept in a damp cellar where the rubbers may decompose, mold may enter through these ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray
... mugir la Reuss sous ses pieds elle ecume par-tout, il faut etre accoutume a ce spectacle pour n'en pas etre effraye. Les rochers de droite et de gauche sont par-tout a pic et d'une granit, qui est jaunatre dans differens endroits; dans d'autres, il est decompose, passant a l'etat d'argile; c'est le felds-path qui subit le premiere ce changement. Des quartiers de rochers des parties de montagnes sont epars; des chalets, des habitations solitaires sont place aux environs des endroits ou il y a quelque paturage. Il y a un de ces rochers qui est une belle ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) • James Hutton
... she believed in a God, and that she hoped for compensation from him for the miseries she had endured. She had now begun to decompose, and to become, in turn, a plant. She who had blossomed in the sun was now to be eaten up by the cattle, carried away in herbs, and in the flesh of beasts, again to become human flesh. But that which is called the soul had been extinguished at the bottom of the dark ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... changed to a black or blackish brown color, while at the foot of the next hill still farther eastward the red shale appears unchanged. The summits of many of these dykes are "covered with a whitish or yellowish compact shale, highly indurated and changed into a rock very difficult to decompose."[8] ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... turn mills, or which causes winds to blow by the unequal rarefaction of the atmosphere. It is from the sun too that the power comes which is liberated in a steam engine. The solar rays enable plants to decompose carbonic acid gas, the product of combustion, and the vegetation thus rendered possible is the source of coal and other combustible bodies. The combustion of coal under a steam boiler therefore merely liberates the power which the sun gave ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... realizing it, many non-gardeners have already scuffed up that thin layer of nearly pure humus forming naturally on the forest floor where leaves and needles contact the soil. Most Americans would be repelled by many of the substances that decompose into humus. But, fastidious as we tend to be, most would not be offended to barehandedly cradle a scoop of humus, raise it to the nose, and take an enjoyable sniff. There seems to be something built into the most primary nature of humans that ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon
... his guard and lover; In strange junctures, felt, with awe, His own symmetry with law; That no mixture could withstand The virtue of his lucky hand. He gold or jewel could not lose, Nor not receive his ample dues. Fearless Guy had never foes, He did their weapons decompose. Aimed at him, the blushing blade Healed as fast the wounds it made. If on the foeman fell his gaze, Him it would straightway blind or craze, In the street, if he turned round, His eye the eye 't ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the gas shell. These make a peculiar gobbling sound as they rush overhead. They explode with a very slight noise and scatter their contents broadcast. The liquids carried by them are usually of the sort that decompose rapidly when exposed to the air and give off the acrid gases dreaded by the soldiers. They are directed against the artillery as well as against intrenched troops. Every command, no matter how small, ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... acids to the teeth cannot be too strongly deprecated: they decompose their substance, and lead to their rapid decay. Hence the whiteness produced by acid tooth-powders and washes is not less deceitful than ruinous in its consequences. As has been just observed, they perform all that ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... undergo, left uncovered and exposed to the incessant action of the air, light, and a variable humidity, changes them gradually into fossils and destroys their membranous or gelatinous part, which is the readiest to decompose. This alteration, which the enormous masses of the corals in question continued to undergo, caused their structure to gradually disappear, and their great porosity unceasingly diminished the parts of these stony masses by displacing and again bringing together the molecules ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... rather, of a fungus or mould. There are many moulds which under certain conditions give rise to this torula condition, to a substance which is not distinguishable from yeast, and which has the same properties as yeast—that is to say, which is able to decompose sugar in the curious way that we shall consider by-and-by. So that the yeast plant is a plant belonging to a group of the Fungi, multiplying and growing and living in this very remarkable manner in the sugary fluid which ...
— Yeast • Thomas H. Huxley
... we shall decompose the coarse unity of the question presented by Van Dale and his Vandals, as though the one sole "issue," that could be sent down for trial before a jury, were the likelihoods of fraud and gross swindling. ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... trophy of his prowess, for he had slain the leopard with his knife in a hand-to-hand combat. He saw that the skin was beautiful, which appealed to his barbaric sense of ornamentation, and when it stiffened and later commenced to decompose because of his having no knowledge of how to cure or tan it was with sorrow and regret that he discarded it. Later, when he chanced upon a lone, black warrior wearing the counterpart of it, soft and clinging ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... his prayer-book this work with so short a text, so long a chant; and as he listened to, and read it with recollection, this magnificent prayer seemed to decompose as a whole, and to represent three different states of the soul, to exhibit the triple phase of humanity, during its youth, its maturity, and its decline; it was, in a word, an essential summary ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... respectively, but their failure as a remedy does not necessarily condemn them as preventives. One dram of caustic potash or of hydrochloric acid may be given daily in the drinking water. In diametrically opposite ways these attack and decompose the less soluble salts and form new ones which are more soluble and therefore little disposed to precipitate in the solid form. Both are beneficial as increasing the secretion of urine. In cases in which the diet has been too highly charged with phosphates (wheat bran, ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... no nerves, no circulation and apparently no life in a full grown feather, yet it does not decompose; indeed, it is one of the hardest things in the world to destroy by any process of decomposition. It retains its resiliency and all its flexibility for years—all that is necessary is to keep it dry. It is finished all along the rib (or quill) ...
— Evolution - An Investigation and a Critique • Theodore Graebner
... rare. Danger, peril, jeopardy, hazard, risk. Darken, obscure, bedim, obfuscate. Dead, lifeless, inanimate, deceased, defunct, extinct. Decay, decompose, putrefy, rot, spoil. Deceit, deception, double-dealing, duplicity, chicanery, guile, treachery. Deceptive, deceitful, misleading, fallacious, fraudulent. Decorate, adorn, ornament, embellish, deck, bedeck, garnish, bedizen, beautify. Decorous, demure, sedate, sober, staid, prim, proper. Deface, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... well. All that eclipsed it having been taken away, you will see the light of day direct. Orisons, rites, bibles, formulas, refract and decompose the sacred light. A dogma is a dark chamber. Through a religion you see the solar spectre of God, but not God. Desuetude and crumbling enhance the grandeur of a temple. As human religion retires from this mysterious and jealous edifice, ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... the curtain' on the Centennial of 1789 by representing Barnave and Mounier as clamouring in 1788 for a republic at Vizille! Of all which let us say with Mr. Carlyle, 'What should Falsehood do but decease, being ripe, decompose itself, and return to the Father of it?' To whom, alas! I fear, under this inexorable law must in due time revert too many of the fuliginous word-pictures of Mr. Carlyle's own dithyrambic ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... finds, and is not required to indulge in conjectures as to the amount of respiration which may or may not have taken place. (3) Gas due to putrefaction collects under the pleural membrane, and can be expelled by pressure, and is not found in the air cells. The lungs decompose late, hence in a fresh body putrefaction of the lungs is absent; in a putrefied child, if the lungs sink, it must have been stillborn. The so-called emphysema pulmonum neonatorum ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... second- and third-rate literary persons whom Dumas assimilated in such numbers as of greater interest and higher merit than Dumas. To them the jackals were far nobler than the lion, and they worked their hardest in the interest of the pack. It was their mission to decompose and disintegrate the magnificent entity which M. Blaze de Bury very happily nicknames 'Dumas-Legion,' and in the process not to render his own unto Caesar but to take from him all that was Caesar's, and ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... decompose affords them nourishment for the support of their vital juices, and enables them, by combining the fluid gases which compose it with those of the air and the soil, to form their different products; while the superfluous gas is abundantly given out by their leaves, to refresh the spent air, ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... nooks for the reception and formation of soil. Every grain of dust that is borne through the air by the lazy breeze of summer, instead of sliding from a glassy surface, is held where it falls. The rocks themselves crumble and decompose, and turn into a fertile mold. Thus, the Coliseum is throughout crowned and draped with a covering of earth, in many places of considerable depth. Trailing plants clasp the stones with arms of verdure; wild flowers bloom in their ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... the contradictions and complicated pangs of the finite. The rays of light from the everlasting sun of wisdom and love are indeed forever falling round us, but we no longer bear the prism of faith which would decompose them for us, giving them such direction as they fall upon the symbolic, the relative, that we might read in their three-fold splendor the symbolized, the Absolute. The human soul was created for the enjoyment of God, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Ellen followed him. There was a fire, and some apparatus belonging to Paulett, which he had used in experiments upon the decreasing water of the basin. He knocked the stone out of its setting, and applied himself to decompose it over the fire. He put forth all his skill and all his power, and was successful; the diamond disappeared, and there remained a few drops of water. He looked at his wife and smiled; she raised her eyes to his, astonished ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... household, the very first thing is to see to the continuous freshening of the air in the sick-room and in all the house. Ventilation is, indeed, the first and most important method of disinfection. Chloride of lime and other disinfecting fluids will decompose the offensive and noxious odours, but pure air will sweep the organisms of disease themselves away. Fresh air kills the microbes of certain diseases, e.g., consumption, and is hostile to all disease. The stools ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... soaked up readily, and any surplus drained off freely. A soil answering all these requirements is made as follows: cut from an old ditch or fence-side, thick sods, and stack them with the grass sides together to rot. This heap should be forked over several times, when it has begun to decompose. In dry weather, if within reach of the hose, a good soaking occasionally will help the process along. The sods should be cut during spring or summer. To this pile of sod, when well rotted (or at time of using), add one-third in bulk of thoroughly rotted manure—cow and horse mixed, ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell
... and Elements and atoms and forces and sun and moon and earth and stars and so forth. In short, the outer universe, the Cosmos. The Cosmos is nothing but the aggregate of the dead bodies and dead energies of bygone individuals. The dead bodies decompose as we know into earth, air, and water, heat and radiant energy and free electricity and innumerable other scientific facts. The dead souls likewise decompose—or else they don't decompose. But if they do decompose, then it is ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... possession of the stage by the very pieces which Shakspeare altered, remodelled, and finally made his own. Elated with success and piqued by the growing interest of the problem, they have left no bookstall unsearched, no chest in a garret unopened, no file of old yellow accounts to decompose in damp and worms, so keen was the hope to discover whether the boy Shakspeare poached or not, whether he held horses at the theatre door, whether he kept school, and why he left in his will only his second-best bed to Anne ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... be washed every day before the work-people leave. In case any nitro-glycerine is spilt upon the floors, after sponging it up as far as possible, the floor should be washed with an alcoholic solution of soda or potash to decompose the nitro-glycerine, which it does according ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford
... bark. From the grass and water that is taken by a cow are produced milk and butter, substances whose nature is different from that of the producing causes. Substances of different kinds when allowed to decompose in water for some time produce spirituous liquors whose nature is quite different from that of those substances that produce them. After the same manner, from the vital seed is produced the body and its attributes, with the understanding, consciousness, mind, and other ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... been endeavouring to decompose carbonic acid gas by light. A faint bluish cloud, due it may be, or it may not be, to the residue of some vapour previously employed, was formed in the experimental tube. On looking across this cloud through ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... of such application of guano and plaster would be, to prevent the waste of the ammonia of the former, as every rain would decompose more or less of the plaster, separate the sulphuric acid from the lime, and the sulphuric acid when liberated, would unite with the ammonia, form a sulphate of ammonia, and hold the latter in reserve to be taken up by the ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson
... which was covered with the mantle, had thawed. It may be from the heat of the burning candles, it had begun to decompose with extraordinary rapidity, and the face of the young count looked indeed terrible. The enormously swollen, and livid mouth looked something monstrous, the blue and swollen curled lips had the appearance of a ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... zinc chloride does not weaken wood under static loading, although the indications are that the wood becomes brittle under impact. If the solution is too strong it will decompose the wood. ...
— The Mechanical Properties of Wood • Samuel J. Record
... titrating arsenic assays with "iodine" when a feeble acid is required to prevent the absorption of iodine by the alkaline carbonate. It is prepared when wanted in solution, by adding a gram or so of bicarbonate of soda and then as much acid as will decompose the bicarbonate mentioned. When a quantity of the gas is wanted, it is prepared, in an apparatus like that used for sulphuretted hydrogen, by acting on fragments of marble or ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer
... developed its roots and leaves, and exhausted the store of materials laid up for it in the seed, it begins to derive its subsistence from the surrounding air, and to absorb carbonic acid, water, ammonia, and nitric acid, and to decompose and convert them into the different constituents of its tissues. These changes take place slowly at first, and more rapidly as the organs fitted for the elaboration of its food are developed. The roots and the leaves are equally active ...
— Elements of Agricultural Chemistry • Thomas Anderson
... of the nature of the sunlight is seen in the rainbow. Here the sunbeams are refracted and reflected from tiny globes of water in the clouds; these convey to us the sunlight, and in doing so decompose the white beams into the seven primary hues—red, orange, yellow, ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... that makes these hard hearts?'—the strain of thought which appears here seems to be present in some degree throughout the play. We seem to trace the tendency which, a few years later, produced Ariel and Caliban, the tendency of imagination to analyse and abstract, to decompose human nature into its constituent factors, and then to construct beings in whom one or more of these factors is absent or atrophied or only incipient. This, of course, is a tendency which produces symbols, allegories, personifications of qualities and abstract ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... the stomach, pale countenance, cold extremities, dull eyes, fluttering pulse. Death seldom ensues, in consequence of the emetic effect. Treatment: The vomiting may be relieved by copious draughts of warm water. Carbonate of soda, administered in solution, will decompose the sulphate of zinc. Milk and albumen will also act as antidotes. General principles to be observed in the ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... winter as well as in summer in one or two hours, and the quantity of free acid required for its formation is reduced to the lowest amount. I proceed as follows: After having dissolved in hot water the requisite quantity of cupric sulphate, I decompose one-fourth of this salt by adding just sufficient of a solution of carbonate of soda to precipitate the copper, in that quantity of the sulphate, as carbonate. I then add just sufficient acetic acid to convert the carbonate into acetate. I have ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 455, September 20, 1884 • Various
... Florence flasks, answer well: a bent tube being connected at one end to its month, the other passing into the second vessel; heat should be cautiously applied by means of an Argand lamp, a little vessel of sand being placed under the flask, which helps the acid to decompose the salt. Prussic acid is then generated and passes through the tube to the recipient vessel, which is to be charged ...
— American Handbook of the Daguerrotype • Samuel D. Humphrey
... Isle itself; but on a closer inspection the grass turns out to be coarse and dry, and many of the trees look scrubby and half dead. Except in the 'gulches' and the deep holes between the hills, the island is covered with lava, in many places of so recent a deposit that it has not yet had time to decompose, and there is consequently only a thin layer of soil on its surface. This soil being, however, very rich, vegetation flourishes luxuriantly for a time; but as soon as the roots have penetrated a certain depth, and have ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... Larva, be it remembered, is not subject to decay; a saint does not decompose in the flesh like mortal sinners. One of these, I have been told, dead fifty years ago and now canonised, can be seen yet in one of the monasteries of North Lebanon, keeping well his flesh and bones together—divinely embalmed. It has ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... dismounting he led us into a walled enclosure, and startled us with the information that we were in the execution grounds. He pointed out spots still damp with the blood of criminals, several jars containing the heads of victims, the protruding hair matted with the lime used to decompose the flesh more rapidly, and a rude cross still remaining upon which a woman had recently been crucified and cut to pieces while alive. Her crime was the gravest known to Chinese law: she had murdered her husband. Poor wretch! probably ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... trace of organic structure. The powder has been analyzed for me by Mr. T. Reeks; it consists of sulphates and muriates both of lime and soda, with very little carbonate of lime. It is known that common salt and carbonate of lime left in a mass for some time together, partly decompose each other; though this does not happen with small quantities in solution. As the half-decomposed shells in the lower parts are associated with much common salt, together with some of the saline substances composing the upper saline layer, and as these shells are corroded and decayed ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... cotyledons, as we shall presently see, were lifted up still enclosed in their seed-coats. They were, however, cast off in the course of two or three days by the swelling of the cotyledons. Until this occurs light is excluded, and the cotyledons cannot decompose carbonic acid; but no one probably would have thought that the advantage thus gained by a little ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... spontaneous inflammation of charcoal; the nitrous atmosphere of Tirhoot, one of the principal districts in India for the manufacture of salt-petre; Discovery of a mass of meteoric iron in Bohemia; the chemical composition of cheese; Berzelius on the power of metallic rods to decompose water after their connexion with the galvanic pile is broken; an alkaline principle in Box-wood; Professor Davy on a new method of detecting metallic poisons; Mr. Bennet's new alloy for the pivot-holes of watches; experiments with Aldini's Fireproof Dresses; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 488, May 7, 1831 • Various
... body are rigid, with the exception of the upper margin, the stomach, and the tentacles. The tentacles are soft and waving, projected or drawn in at will, and they retain their flexible character through life, and decompose when the animal dies. For this reason the dried specimens of Corals preserved in museums do not give us the least idea of the living Corals, in which every one of the millions of beings composing such a community is crowned ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... into fiction of a vast amount of new material. Fielding tells us as much as he thought necessary to account for the actions of his creatures; he thought that each of these actions could be decomposed on the spot into a few simple personal elements, as we decompose a force in a question of abstract dynamics. The larger motives are all unknown to him; he had not understood that the nature of the landscape or the spirit of the times could be for anything in a story; and so, naturally and rightly, he said nothing about them. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... this subject is also the question how far it is possible by merely internal evidence to decompose an ancient document, resolving it into its separate elements, distinguishing its different dates and its different degrees of credibility. The reader is no doubt aware with what a rare skill this method of inquiry has been pursued in the present century, chiefly by great German and Dutch scholars, ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... to which the surgeon usually has recourse—a liquid one. Certainly not one that speedily deliquesces; for they are both unmanageable, and, what is a more important consideration, they may hold in solution, and not decompose the poison, and thus inoculate the whole of the wound. The application which promises to be successful, is that of the 'lunar caustic'. It is perfectly manageable, and, being sharpened to a point, may be applied with certainty to every recess ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... themselves, and perceiving at the same time the advantages of a system of electric measurement dependent on, or at any rate comparable with, the chemical action producing the electric current, adopted as unit quantity of electricity the quantity required to decompose nine grains of water, 9 being the atomic weight of water, according to the chemical nomenclature then ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882 • Various
... squealed in the darkness, and the logs came in by twos and tens and dozens. No sooner were we out of the keep than women came and tossed in logs through the door and windows, until presently that building, too, contained fuel enough to decompose the stone. And over the whole of it, here, there and everywhere, men were pouring cans and cans of kerosene, while other men were setting dry tinder ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... Wert thou Magnesia Instead we'd form that's named from Epsom. Couldst thou Potassa be, I Aqua-fortis, Our happy union should that compound form, Nitrate of Potash—otherwise Saltpeter. And thus our several natures sweetly blent, We'd live and love together, until death Should decompose the fleshly TERTIUM QUID, Leaving our souls to all eternity Amalgamated. Sweet, thy name is Briggs And mine is Johnson. Wherefore should not we Agree to form a Johnsonate of Briggs? We will. The day, the happy day, is nigh, When Johnson shall ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... hastening the chlorination of natural gas in the production of chloroform. One advantage of the radiation from this light-source is that it does not extend far into the ultra-violet, for the ultra-violet rays of short wave-lengths decompose some compounds. In other words, it is necessary to choose radiation which is effective but which does not have rays associated with it that destroy the desired products of the reaction. By the use of a shunt across the arc the light ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... in growing, decompose CO2, and thereby store up energy, the energy derived from the light and heat of the sun. When they decay, or are burned, or are eaten by animals, exactly the same amount of energy is liberated, or changed from potential to kinetic, and the same amount of CO2 is restored to the air. The ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams
... be fresh, although different forms of the drug are used. It tends quickly to decompose—forming a toxic by-product—and, according to some authorities, this decomposed scopolamin is responsible for many undesirable results which have attended some cases of "twilight sleep." Various forms of morphin are also used, as ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... instructions. And, for the present, you may know that it is a continuous explosion that drives the ship. I have learned to decompose water into its components and split them into subatomic form. They reunite to give something other than matter. It is a liquid—liquid energy, though the term is inaccurate—that separates out in two forms, and a fluid ounce of each is the product of thousands of tons of water. The potential ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... when new, apt to discolor and impart a disagreeable flavor to food cooked in them, are not objectionable from a health standpoint, if kept clean and free from rust. Iron rust is the result of the combination of the iron with oxygen, for which it has so great an affinity that it will decompose water to get oxygen to unite with; hence it is that iron utensils rust so quickly when not carefully dried after using, or if left where they can collect moisture. This is the reason why a coating of tallow, which serves ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... longer to bite he is killed, and the liver placed where it will decompose without any of the moisture being lost. You can imagine what a mixture it is when thus prepared, and in it ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... of human faculties and the objects of knowledge, and are related to one another. The special doctrine of the Vaiseshika is the theory of atoms ascribed to Kanada. It teaches that matter consists of atoms (anu) which are eternal in themselves though all combinations of them are liable to decompose. The Sankhya and Yoga are also related and represent two aspects of the same system which is of great antiquity and allied to Buddhism and Jainism. The two Mimamsas are consecutive expositions of the teaching scattered throughout the Vedic texts ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... source of such currents, we may pass an inappreciable current over the line, and on any point of the same we are able to obtain a heavy current, capable of fusing a thick copper wire. Or we may, by the help of some artifice, decompose a solution in any electrolytic cell by connecting only one pole of the cell to the line or source of energy. Or we may, by attaching to the line, or only bringing into its vicinity, light up an incandescent lamp, an exhausted ...
— Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High - Frequency • Nikola Tesla
... portion of the stem of Viola cornuta attacked by AEcidium depauperans. The minute pustules are seen (natural size) distributed all over the stem, leaf-stalks, and ruined leaves; the effect of the fungus growth is to decompose the tissues of the plant. At B, a transverse section through the stem is illustrated and magnified twenty diameters. The section cuts through several of the abscess-like pustules, and it is seen how completely embedded they are in the flesh of the plant. At C, a pustule is seen in section, ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... a Mr. J.B. Thompson, of New Cross, London, patented a new process of bleaching, the main feature of which consisted in the use of carbonic acid gas in a closed vessel to decompose the chloride of lime. The "chemicking" and "souring" operations he performed at one and the same time. The reactions which took place in his bleaching keir were stated by the inventor ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 530, February 27, 1886 • Various
... Decomposition. — N. decomposition, analysis, dissection, resolution, catalysis, dissolution; corruption &c. (uncleanness) 653; dispersion &c. 73; disjunction &c. 44; disintegration. V. decompose, decompound; analyze, disembody, dissolve; resolve into its elements, separate into its elements; electrolyze[Chem]; dissect, decentralize, break up; disperse &c. 73; unravel &c. (unroll) 313; crumble ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... produced from the recrements of animal and vegetable bodies, such as phosphoric, ammoniacal, marine salt, and others; these are washed from the earth by rains, and carried down our rivers into the sea; they seem all here to decompose each other except the marine salt, which has therefore from the beginning of the habitable world ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... great use in the arts; but as a purifier it has no equal. It will decompose every gaseous compound and evil-smelling gas which escapes from decayed animal ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... point at the floor. A wild thought swept me that I could snatch it. But of what use would that be? Its ray would decompose all human flesh, but it would not harm a Robot; and if I startled Migul, fought with him in the confines of this narrow room, he would kill Mary ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... shavings is chiefly objectionable because of the amount of inert material. The shavings are exceedingly slow to decompose, and in light soil in considerable quantities would cause a serious loss of moisture. If applied, on the other hand, to a heavy soil and accompanied by sufficient irrigation water, the effect of making the soil more friable might be very desirable. ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... Russel Wallace. He says: "If individuals did not die they would soon multiply inordinately and would interfere with each other's healthy existence. Food would become scarce, and hence the larger individuals would probably decompose or diminish in size. The deficiency of nourishment would lead to parts of the organism not being renewed; they would become fixed, and liable to more or less slow decomposition as dead parts within a living body. The smaller organisms would have a better chance of finding food, ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... fern-fronds of pure rime may be found in myriads on the meadows. They are fashioned like perfect vegetable structures, opening fan-shaped upon crystal stems, and catching the sunbeams with the brilliancy of diamonds. Taken at certain angles, they decompose light into iridescent colours, appearing now like emeralds, rubies, or topazes, and now like Labrador spar, blending all hues in a wondrous sheen. When the lake freezes for the first time, its surface is of course quite black, and so transparent that it is easy to see the fishes swimming in ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... in this connection to note that the organic matter in soil gradually disappears, just as a body buried in a grave will finally decompose. Experiments show that such organic matter as wheat straw or cloth in small pieces rots and decays in about three years. But this depends very largely on an excess of air. If the soil is open and the organic matter loose, oxidation takes ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... Truesdale, "we don't look at a painting with our noses, but with our eyes. I decompose what is before me into the primary colors. Now the thing for you to do is to step back ten or twelve feet and recompose them. That armchair over there is just about your point of view precisely—and so inviting and comfortable! ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... runs that the gunners require a week's clear notice before firing a salute.[B] There is no locomotion save in boxes and on the backs of quadrupeds; and quadrupeds of the inferior order are usually, when overtaken by death, thrown in the streets to decompose. But if the irregularity of the town would galvanize the late Monsieur Haussmann in his grave, its situation would satisfy the most exacting Yankee engineer. It is huddled in a sheltered nest on the fringe of a land of milk and honey; it has the advantage of a spread of level beach, and ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... now an L, and so on, till the poet observed that they completed the whole text of Scripture, which says, Diligite justitiam, qui judicatis terram—(Love righteousness, ye that be judges of the earth). The last letter, M, they did not decompose like the rest, but kept it entire for a while, and glowed so deeply within it, that the silvery orb thereabout seemed burning with gold. Other lights, with a song of rapture, then descended like a crown of lilies, on the top, of the letter; and then, from the body of it, rose thousands of ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... kill, because by their strong affinity they decompose the blood and form new stony substances, so the soul possessed by too strong an affinity for ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... of Burgundy may be worth a bottle of Bordeaux; but the mark, being significant, leads to an exact knowledge of the price, since it gives the analysis. To calculate the price of an article of merchandise is to decompose it into its constituent parts; now, that is exactly what the trade-mark must do, if designed to signify anything. Therefore we are on the road, as I have said, to a general ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... and human flesh. On the other hand, it had not harmed the horny flipper of the termite worker that had flicked it onto the garden slug. Did that mean that the flipper was immunized to the stuff, like the lining of the stomach, which is unharmed by acids powerful enough to decompose other organic master? Or did it mean that all ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... the process is to combine the "Leblanc" and the "ammonia-soda" manufacture. But in place of using caustic lime to decompose the ammonium chloride and get back the ammonia, the "alkali waste" spoken of above is employed, it being found that not only is the ammonia driven off, but that also the sulphur in the "waste" is obtained in a form allowing of its easy utilization, it and the ammonia combining to form ammonium ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various
... intricate in constitution, contains in each atom, 298 atoms of carbon, 40 of nitrogen, 2 of sulphur, 228 of hydrogen, and 92 of oxygen—in all, 660 atoms; or, more strictly speaking—equivalents. And these two substances are so unstable as to decompose at quite ordinary temperatures; as that to which the outside of a joint of roast meat is exposed. Thus it is manifest that the present chemical heterogeneity of the Earth's surface has arisen by degrees, as the decrease of heat has permitted; and that it ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... grown by our region's farmers and so can only be found by mail from Johnny's Selected Seeds (see Chapter 5 for their address). Poppy seed used for cooking will often sprout. Sown densely in October, it forms a thick carpet of frilly spring greens underlaid with countless massive taproots that decompose very rapidly if the plants are tilled in in April before flower stalks begin to appear. Beware if using poppies as a green manure crop: be sure to till them in early to avoid trouble with the ...
— Gardening Without Irrigation: or without much, anyway • Steve Solomon
... a dead animal that is left exposed upon the ground to decompose does not moulder away by the usual process of decay, but what is left of the body after the hungry buzzards and coyotes have finished their feast, dries up into a ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... combination, he easily separated the olein, the margarin, and the stearin, by employing boiling water. But to simplify the operation, he preferred to saponify the fat by means of lime. By this he obtained a calcareous soap, easy to decompose by sulphuric acid, which precipitated the lime into the state of sulphate, ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... very well. To decompose a body is to separate from each other the various elementary ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet
... if laid in a heap and left by themselves to decompose, they will decay without undergoing any acetous fermentation; nor can their kindly temperature be soured even by exposure to the acids of the stomach. They are constituted entirely of soluble matter, and leave no residuum to ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... characteristic of these rocks is their decomposition into the purest sand and clay. Some of them decompose spontaneously, though slowly, on exposure to weather; the greater number only after being mechanically pulverized; but the sand and clay to which by one or the other process they are reducible, are both remarkable for their purity. The ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... lining membrane of the mouth. Febrile, or digestive disorders, or any condition that may interfere with feeding, may cause this disorder. In the latter cases the mucous membrane of the mouth is not cleansed by the saliva. Particles of feed may decompose and irritating organisms set up an inflammation. Putrid or decomposed slops, hot feeds, irritating drenches and drinking from filthy wallows are common causes of inflammation of the mouth ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.
... road. Burst open. Paddy Dignam shot out and rolling over stiff in the dust in a brown habit too large for him. Red face: grey now. Mouth fallen open. Asking what's up now. Quite right to close it. Looks horrid open. Then the insides decompose quickly. Much better to close up all the orifices. Yes, also. With wax. The sphincter loose. Seal ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... devious, And will not come when desired. On land and on sea It is indispensable. It is without equal, It is many-sided; It is not confined, It is incomparable; It comes from four quarters; It is noxious, it is beneficial; It is yonder, it is here; It will decompose, But it will not repair the injury; It will not suffer for its doings, Seeing it is blameless. One Being has prepared it, Out of all creatures, By a tremendous blast, To wreak vengeance ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... weak oxidiser, and therefore, although (p. 035) strong enough to destroy the colouring matter of the fibre is not strong enough to decompose the fibre itself. Hydrogen peroxide is sold as a water-white liquid, without any odour or taste. Its strength is measured by the quantity of oxygen which is evolved when one volume of the liquid is treated with potassium permanganate; the most common strength is 10 volume ...
— The Dyeing of Woollen Fabrics • Franklin Beech
... frequent causes of decay of the teeth is the retention of fragments of food between and around them. The warmth and moisture of the mouth make these matters decompose quickly. The acid thus generated attacks the enamel of the teeth, causing decay of the dentine. Decayed teeth are often the cause of an offensive breath and ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... in the Bessemer and similar processes, to decompose the oxide of iron. Spiegeleisen, an iron which contains a natural alloy of from 10 to 12 per cent. of manganese, is used for this purpose when conveniently ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... decompose normal teeth by true electrolysis, but acids resulting from decomposition of food and fluids react upon the lime constituents of the teeth and promote ...
— Tin Foil and Its Combinations for Filling Teeth • Henry L. Ambler
... Tertiary period suddenly overwhelmed with floods the dense growth of tropical vegetation and multitudinous animal life in the Northwest, the waters necessarily became heavily charged with the naturally resulting carbonic acid gas, and this, acting on the limestone rocks, would decompose them, leaving a residual clay and taking the chief portions of the mineral components in solution, to be afterwards deposited according to circumstances and conditions; and these are indicated by the various results ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... fulfilled all Fanshaw's fable of an old piratical Admiral; though the details seemed afterwards to decompose into accidents. For instance, he wore a broad-brimmed hat as protection against the sun; but the front flap of it was turned up straight to the sky, and the two corners pulled down lower than the ears, so that ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... fine sponge dipped in hot water, and more often than not all the dirt disappears at the same time. If this treatment is not sufficient, you might replace the soap jelly by soft soap (savon noir), but you must be careful not to leave it long on the printing, which might decompose and run, and that would do more ...
— Bookbinding, and the Care of Books - A handbook for Amateurs, Bookbinders & Librarians • Douglas Cockerell
... then in fresh and brilliant fame as the inventor of the spectroscope and the initiator of the scientific method known as spectrolysis. The fact has long been known that a prism properly contrived will decompose a ray of white light into the seven primary colours, but the broad and narrow bands running across the variegated scheme of the spectrum had either escaped notice or been neglected as phenomena not significant. ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... of this kind will run a small motor, operate a telegraph sounder, make a simple electro-magnet, or ring an electric bell; two cells will decompose water: three will heat a piece ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education
... ordinary consumer for himself. A generator which is perfectly satisfactory in general behaviour, and which evolves a sufficient proportion of the possible total make of gas to be economical, does not of necessity decompose the carbide quantitatively; nor is it constructed in a fashion to render an exact measurement of the gas liberated at standard temperature and pressure easy to obtain. For obvious reasons the careful consumer of acetylene will keep a ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield
... and a tarpaulin to protect the baggage during the night's bivouac. No vulcanised India-rubber should be employed in tropical climates; it rots, and becomes useless. A quart syringe for injecting brine into fresh meat is very necessary. In hot climates, the centre of the joint will decompose before the salt can penetrate to the interior, but an injecting syringe will thoroughly preserve the meat in a few minutes. A few powerful fox-traps are useful for catching night-game in countries where there is ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... another garment and repairs the waste. But of course, whenever the soul perishes, she must have on her last garment, and this will survive her; and then at length, when the soul is dead, the body will show its native weakness, and quickly decompose and pass away. I would therefore rather not rely on the argument from superior strength to prove the continued existence of the soul after death. For granting even more than you affirm to be possible, and acknowledging not only that the soul existed before birth, but also that the souls ...
— Phaedo - The Last Hours Of Socrates • Plato
... way and seemed not to exist when gallic acid was used, for ink so made was found to precipitate only after a long exposure, it required no free acid to keep the precipitate in solution, and retained the indigo blue color for a long time; alkalis did not decompose the ink, and provided blacker and more permanent writing. Determination of the correct proportions of gallic acid and ferrous-sulphate was the subject of prolonged experiments conducted on similar lines to those already detailed. The conclusions as to precipitation were also similar. ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... saponification; thus, we heat the yellow precipitate with a small quantity of alkali to saponify the fatty body mixed with the xanthine, which even contains the xanthine dissolved. As the coloring matter is soluble in the soap solution, we do not treat the mass with water, but decompose it with an acid which isolates the xanthine and the fatty acids resulting from the saponification. This precipitate we treat with cold alcohol, which leaves behind the fatty acids, and dissolves the xanthine. This substance is a fine yellow color, insoluble in water, but ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse
... is the Life, or the Soul, or the Personality that uses, and that in using shapes and moulds, the body and that also determines its strength or its weakness. When this is separated from the body, the body at once becomes a cold, inert mass, commencing immediately to decompose into the constituent material elements that composed it—literally going back to the earth and ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... and give it out slowly as required by the crops, but they give shelter and coolness to the young and tender shoots of grain and pulse. Of course trees, shrubs, and plants, of all kind in Oude, as elsewhere, derive carbonic acid gas and ammonia from the atmosphere, and decompose them, for their own ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... the "soft-ware" and the "hard-ware," are very important. The former includes all vegetable and animal matters—everything that will decompose. These are selected and bagged at once, and carried off as soon as possible, to be sold as manure for plowed land, wheat, barley, &c. Under this head, also, the dead cats are comprised. They are generally the perquisites of the women searchers. Dealers come to the wharf, or dust-field, ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... to them means death. They are vital by virtue of their tendency to resist the repose of inert matter; chemical activity disintegrates a stone or other metal, but the decay of organized matter is different in kind; living organisms decompose it and resolve ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... a charnel house when these bodies start to decompose." Baron hesitated. "Shouldn't we get out of town while there is ...
— The End of Time • Wallace West
... 1-39,000, 1-45,000, and 1-55,000 of an inch in length, as Helmholtz has suggested, or, as seems to the writer more probable, the substance purpurine is a highly complex organic substance made up of molecules of different sizes and requiring wave lengths of different orders to decompose them, so that a part of the substance may be quite disintegrated, while other molecules may be quite entire throughout the visual space. This will account for most of the chromatic effects of vision, for complementary colors, and for color blindness, by supposing that the purpurine ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... a perpetual ternateness of action and reaction; which press, which gravitate towards a common center, whilst others depart from and fly off towards the periphery, or circumference; which attract and repel; which by continual approximation and constant collision, produce and decompose all the bodies we behold; then, I say, there is no necessity to have recourse to supernatural powers, to account for the formation of things, and those extraordinary appearances which ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... grew stifling, for the expended energy of the enemies' rays must needs be absorbed. It could not disintegrate them nor decompose their bodies, but the contacts were many and the liberation of heat enormous. They were suffocating! But Karl would not desist. They drove on, now beneath, now above an enemy ship. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... the action of crystallizing force is this: By sending a voltaic current through a liquid, you know that we decompose the liquid, and if it contains a metal, we liberate this metal by electrolysis. This small cell contains a solution of acetate of lead, which is chosen for our present purpose, because lead lends itself freely to ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... this metal were not completely successful; in fact, metallic calcium remained a laboratory curiosity until the beginning of the 20th century. Davy, inspired by his successful isolation of the metals sodium and potassium by the electrolysis of their hydrates, attempted to decompose a mixture of lime and mercuric oxide by the electric current; an amalgam of calcium was obtained, but the separation of the mercury was so difficult that even Davy himself was not sure as to whether he had obtained pure metallic calcium. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... the carbonic acid; that is, by an increased quantity its tension increases, and more would pass in solution in the form of bicarbonates. On the other hand, by diminishing the quantity of carbonic acid in the atmosphere, some of the bicarbonates would decompose and carbonic acid pass into ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various
... examination of the external genitals should never be omitted in any case of dysuria during childhood. You will not infrequently discover a phimosis which interferes more or less with the discharge of urine and retains portions of the latter behind the foreskin, where it may decompose and give rise to an inflammatory condition of the prepuce, with painful dysuria.... This is also true of the occasional adhesion of the labia minora in little girls, like the similar adhesion of the foreskin in boys. ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... special chapter. Suffice it to say that the intellect represents becoming as a series of states, each of which is homogeneous with itself and consequently does not change. Is our attention called to the internal change of one of these states? At once we decompose it into another series of states which, reunited, will be supposed to make up this internal modification. Each of these new states must be invariable, or else their internal change, if we are forced to notice it, must be resolved again into ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson |
