will also burn blue: [The Lecturer illustrated his remarks by blowing on
the gas-light.] The only reason why I have not the same bright light when
I thus blow upon the flame is, that the carbon meets with sufficient air
to burn it before it gets separated in the flame in a free state. The
difference is solely due to the solid particles not being separated before
the gas is burnt.
You observe that there are certain products as the result of the
combustion of a candle, and that of these products one portion may be
considered as charcoal, or soot; that charcoal, when afterwards burnt,
produces some other product; and it concerns us very much now to ascertain
what that other product is. We shewed that something was going away; and I
want you now to understand how much is going up into the air; and for that
purpose we will have combustion on a little larger scale. From that candle
ascends heated air, and two or three experiments will shew you the
ascending current; but, in order to give you a notion of the quantity of
matter which ascends in this way, I will make an experiment by which I
shall try to imprison some of the products of this combustion. For this
purpose I have here what boys call a fire-balloon. I use this fire-balloon
merely as a sort of measure of the result of the combustion we are
considering; and I am about to make a flame in such an easy and simple
manner as shall best serve my present purpose. This plate shall be the
cup, we will so say, of the candle; this spirit shall be our fuel; and I
am about to place this chimney over it, because it is better for me to do
so than to let things proceed at random.
[Illustration: Fig. 10.]
Mr. Anderson will now light the fuel, and here at the top we shall get the
results of the combustion. What we get at the top of that tube is exactly
the same, generally speaking, as you get from the combustion of a candle;
but we do not get a luminous flame here, because we use a substance which
is feeble in carbon. I am about to put this balloon not into action,
because that is not my object but to shew you the effect which results
from the action of those products which arise from the candle, as they
arise here from the furnace. [The balloon was held over the chimney, when
it immediately commenced to fill.] You see how it is disposed to ascend;
but we must not let it up, because it might come in contact with those
upper gas-lights, and that would be very inconvenient. [The upper
gas-lights were turned out, at the request of the Lecturer, and the
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