The readiest means of decomposing water is as follows: take a
gun-barrel, the breech of which has been removed, and fill it with iron
wire, coiled up. Place it across a chafing-dish filled with lighted
charcoal, and connect to one end of the barrel a small glass retort
containing some water; and, to the other, a bent tube, opening under
the shelf of a water bath. Heat the barrel red hot, and apply a lamp
under the retort: the stream of water, in passing over the red-hot iron
of the barrel, will be decomposed, the oxygen will unite with the iron,
and the hydrogen may be collected in the form of gas at the end of the
tube over the water.