Granted, my earlier statement and this one are overly simplistic.
Water is a complicated subject, and has a complicated chemistry and
physics associated with it. It has been studied in science and
engineering for years, and probably will be for many more to come. More
and more is learned about it as time goes by. There is insufficient time
left in my life nor  space here to do a complete treatise on water, but
it is an interesting subject. Here is a link as a starting point. You
can run with it from here to however far you wish to go. Just Google for
water and it's all over the place. It is fascinating.

http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/

John Rodgers
Clayartist and Moldmaker
88'GL VW Bus Driver
Chelsea, AL
Http://www.moldhaus.com

On 9/24/2010 10:43 AM, Alistair Bell wrote:
> Water is known as the universal solvent due to its ability to
> dissolve bases or acids