Results: The Story of Water ** The Liquid of Life

The vast majority of water on the Earth's surface, over 96 percent, is saline water in the oceans. The freshwater resources, such as water falling from the skies and moving into streams, rivers, lakes, and groundwater, provide people with the water they need every day to live. Water sitting on the surface of the Earth is easy to visualize, and your view of the water cycle might be that rainfall fills up the rivers and lakes. But, the unseen water below our feet is critically important to life. About 326 million cubic miles of water covers the earth. Did you know that only 3.5% of water on the Earth is safe for consumption (drinkable)?

The history of mineral waters is closely linked to its past use in thermal baths, when its health benefits became evident. The Ancient Romans created extensive water distribution systems in their Empire and collected water from the ground using a water wheel, before discovering the piston pump. Like the Celts, the Romans were aware of the therapeutic properties of mineral water springs and frequented thermal baths. They were the first to carry water in amphorae, the precursors of the bottles we use today. Do you drink 8 glasses of water a day?

Joseph Priestly worked in Leeds from 1767-1773 at Mill Hill Chapel in City Square, where his statue still stands, and during his time there he experimented with carbon dioxide from the local brewery, capturing the gas and impregnating water with it to create soda water. The work won him the Royal Society Copley Medal. The bubbles in mineral water, soda water and sparkling wines are a result of Carbon Dioxide. Do you drink carbonated water known also known as seltzer?

Joseph Priestley, born March 13, 1733, Birstall Fieldhead, near Leeds, Yorkshire [now West Yorkshire], England—died February 6, 1804, Northumberland, Pennsylvania, U.S., English clergyman, political theorist, and physical scientist whose work contributed to advances in liberal political and religious thought and in experimental chemistry. He is best remembered for his contribution to the chemistry of gases. Priestley's interest in science intensified in 1765, when he met the American scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin. He was a member of the Lunar Society, an elite group of local gentlemen, Dissenters, and industrialists (including Josiah Wedgwood, Erasmus Darwin, James Watt, and Matthew Boulton), who applied the principles of science and technology toward the solving of problems experienced in 18th-century urban life. The English press and government decreed that Priestley's support, together with that of his friend, the moral philosopher Richard Price, of the American and French Revolutions was "seditious."On July 14, 1791, the "Church-and-King mob" destroyed Priestley's house and laboratory. Priestley and his family retreated to the security of Price's congregation at Hackney, near London. Priestley's defense fell on deaf ears as the conservative reaction to the French Revolution intensified in England. In 1794 he fled to the United States, where he discovered a form of government that was "relatively tolerable." His best-known writing in the United States, Letters to the Inhabitants of Northumberland (1799), became part of the Republican response to the Federalists. Priestley died at Northumberland, Pennsylvania, mourned and revered by Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States. His home in Pennsylvannia has been preserved as a Museum of his work in Science, have you ever visited this Museum of his home?