Water Behaves at www.japanese-home-gardens.com

Water behaves somewhat differently from most other substances, as may be surmised from the negative values for two of the thermal coefficients. Immediately above the melting point at 0°C the volume of the water decreases to a minimum value at 3.9°C where the liquid is most dense, a discovery first made by the Scotch chemist Thomas C. Hope. This does not mean that the water has become more highly ordered. Actually, ice at 0°C is less dense than liquid water at 0°C by 0.0900 cmVgram; this is why it can float. Although the average intermolecular distance in the solid ice is greater than that in the liquid water, the crystalline structure of the ice renders it a more highly ordered system.

Some heavy soils benefit from treating with synthetic soil conditioners such as Krillium, but worth while results are not always obtained. Krillium is not a fertilizer. Improvement from its use comes from its ability to "glue" together extremely fine soil particles into larger granules. When this occurs the soil behaves like coarser soil. It permits the passage of air and water and is less likely to become pasty and excessively sticky from walking on it. The manufacturers recommend that for garden use these conditioners be applied after the soil has been brought to a granulated, friable condition suitable for sowing grass seed, not to unimproved sticky clays and other soils in poor condition.

The earth has a strong magnetic field [Key]. A bar magnet suspended by a thread eventually conies to rest with one end pointing towards the earth's north magnetic pole, the other towards the south magnetic pole. It behaves similarly if another bar magnet, or large coil of wire with electricity flowing through it, is brought near.