1784: Hydrogen and water - The book of science

Hydrogen and water
Phlogistonist
Hydrogène
Commentary

Hydrogen and water

Ancient philosophers had considered
water to be an element,
and this mistake persisted
until the seventeenth century
when chemists began to discover
that water had an inflammable component
and that this inflammable component
when mixed with air and burned
produced a liquid a lot like water.
Henry Cavendish was the first to show
that “inflammable air” was an element
and that it produces water when burned,
and the first to show
although he did not use the names we use,
that oxygen would unite
with twice its volume of hydrogen.
which, as we know, is consistent
with the composition of water, H₂O.

Phlogistonist

Cavendish repeated the experiments
of Joseph Priestley, Pierre Joseph Macquer,
and others,
but was most careful and thorough.
It is a miracle of science
that, as a phlogistonist,
Cavendish’s interpretation of his findings
did not diminish their importance.

Hydrogène

If I believed each element were the spirit of a god,
then Hydrogène, the water-former,
would command my respect.
Hydrogen is the lightest and most abundant element
in the universe.
Hydrogen unites with oxygen to make water
which assumes myriad forms—
the vast and deep oceans
clouds, rivers, springs, lakes
snowflakes
sheets of ice
dew on a spider’s web
and water is safe to drink.

Carl Wilhelm Scheele and Joseph Priestley discovered oxygen, but Antoine Lavoisier named it oxygène, meaning “acid-former” in Greek. Lavoisier also named Cavendish’s inflammable air hydrogène, “water-former” in Greek, because it produces water when it is burned.

It is strange that water extinguishes a fire when both of its components, hydrogen and oxygen, are highly reactive, but water seldom extinguishes a fire by smothering it; instead, the heat of the fire vaporizes the water, and the energy required for this starves the fire of the heat needed for the chain reaction.

Also a vocabulary note. In English, “inflammable” and “flammable” have the same meaning.