PROLOGUE
3
A vagrant beau called Oxygen,[1]
Impulsive strong and gay,
Assails the Court of Hydrogen;[2]
But soon is brought to bay.
He's smitten by its daughters fair
And two he takes to wife—
The fiery damsels of the void
Whose destiny is strife.
Mid din and crash and rumbling roar
And flashing, flickering lights,
And laughter from the Titan host
And countless scores of sprites—
- ↑ Oxygen, named by Lavoisier, first separated and identified by Dr. Priestley. The chief constituent of water, in the formation of which, in combination with Hydrogen, it is approximately eight-ninths by weight. In combination with Nitrogen, in the ratio of one to five, it forms the air. It is the great supporter of combustion and animal life. It is the most versatile of the elements, and is not only the basic element of air and water but enters largely into the formation of all solid substances, even being approximately one-half by weight of the rocks composing the earth's substance.
- ↑ Hydrogen is the lightest of the elements and, perhaps, the most inflammable. Upon its discovery by Cavendish, he called it "inflammable air." The spectroscope reveals its presence in the Sun. It is one of the paradoxes of nature that this light inflammable gaseous element upon being chemically combined with Oxygen should form water, the eternal foe of fire.
