But what would Celsius have thought if he knew that actually water should not freeze at all at zero nor boil at 100 degrees?

   Nowadays scientists have established that in this respect water is a great fraud. It is the most anomalous compound on the globe. Here is what scientists claim: water should boil at a temperature 180° lower, i.e. at minus 80 degrees. At any rate, the regulations current in the Periodic System would have it boil at such an antarctic temperature.

   The properties of the elements of anyone group of the Periodic System gradate quite regularly from the light elements to the heavy ones. Take, for instance, the boiling point. The properties of compounds do not vary just any old way, but depend on the location of the elements, comprising the molecule, in the Mendeleyev Table. This refers in particular, to hydrogen compounds, to hydrides of elements of the same group.

   Water may be called oxygen hydride. Oxygen is a member of the sixth group, which also includes sulphur, selenium, tellurium, and polonium. The hydrides of all these elements have the same molecular pattern as the water molecule: H₂S, H₂Se, H₂Te, and H₂Po. The boiling points of these compounds are known to gradate regularly from sulphur to its heavier brothers. And unexpectedly we find that the boiling point of water falls out of this series, being much higher than it should be.

   Water refuses to acknowledge the rules of behaviour established for the Periodic Table, as it were, and postpones its transition to the vapour state for 180 degrees. This is only the first amazing anomaly of water.

   Its second anomaly has to do with its freezing point. The laws of the Periodic System specify that water shall solidify at a temperature of 100 degrees below zero. Water violates this requirement harshly and turns to ice at zero. This wilfulness of water suggests that its liquid and solid states are abnormal on Earth.

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