Part 1

Transcriber’s Notes:

Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_), and text enclosed by equal signs is in bold (=bold=).

Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end, including some corrections to the text.

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HOW TO DO CHEMICAL TRICKS.

Containing Over One Hundred Highly Amusing and Instructive Tricks With Chemicals.

By A. ANDERSON.

HANDSOMELY ILLUSTRATED.

NEW YORK: FRANK TOUSEY, Publisher, 24 UNION SQUARE.

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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1898, by

FRANK TOUSEY,

in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D.C.

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HOW TO DO CHEMICAL TRICKS.

From the remotest ages chemistry has exercised the strongest fascination on the minds of the curious, nor is it a matter of surprise that boys should feel themselves drawn strongly by its mystery and seeming magic. This attraction is undoubtedly caused by what the ancients called the elements, earth, air, fire and water. There is something so weird about the manifestation of air and fire, that it is not difficult to understand how the alchemists believed them to be forces able to be used at the bidding of spirits, who might be conjured up by incantations and spells.

Now it is known that these uncanny beings existed only in the imagination of the forerunners of modern chemists. Yet what boy can look on the brilliantly colored fires of a Fourth of July display, or the burnished gold of the setting sun, or the fantastic pictures in the glowing coals in a grate, and not feel that there is still something of magic and mystery in fire still? What the boy feels, the scientist cannot explain. Nobody knows actually what fire is. All that can be said is that fire is produced by certain substances, such as coals, wood, or paper, that give out heat, while passing from one state to another.

Now the word “element” was and is used to mean that simplest form of matter, which, with other simplest forms goes to make up the whole world of everything in it. The earth, animals, plants, the sea, the atmosphere, are all made up of one or more of some seventy substances called elements. Hence it is clear that the earth, air and water are not, as the ancients thought, elements at all. As will be seen in this little book, both air and water consist of mixtures of elements. In chemistry such mixtures are called compounds. This word occurs again and again, so its explanation should be remembered.

One great fact must be remembered, which is at the very root of chemistry. Nothing is really lost, however much its form may be changed, or however many changes it may pass through. For instance, it may seem that when a block of wood be burned that a very large amount of it is lost. If, however, the ashes, the smoke, and the carbon that is burned by the air be all weighed, the result would be exactly the same as the weight of the original block of wood.

Again take an instance of a different nature. A lump of sugar is placed in a small glass of water. Gradually the solid is dissolved, and in time disappears. It is not lost, however. By boiling the mixture until all the water has evaporated the sugar will be found adhering as crystals on the sides of the glass. If these be carefully collected, they will be found to weigh precisely as much as the original lump of sugar.

Once more, take a block of ice weighing an ounce. Having removed it into a room, the solid will in an hour or two have disappeared entirely, but the water that has replaced the block of ice will weigh neither more nor less than an ounce. If again heat be applied to the water it will all disappear, but if weighed in a jam jar, the steam, although invisible to the eye, will still weigh one ounce exactly.

From the above-given experiments it may be seen that, however matter may change its form it cannot really be destroyed. This truth will appear in every experiment that can be performed, whether those given in this little book or in the most learned treatise on chemistry.

Chemical Affinity.

This high-sounding term means that substances have a power of uniting together that can be better explained by an experiment. Allow a few drops of water to fall on a perfectly clean piece of iron. In a short time a reddish-brown substance will appear on the iron that in ordinary language is called rust. What does this mean? Water is a compound substance composed of oxygen and hydrogen, but when brought into contact with iron the oxygen prefers to unite with the iron and sets the hydrogen free. Hence, would the chemist say, oxygen has a “stronger affinity” for iron than for hydrogen. In this case the rust is composed of rust, a combination of iron and oxygen called oxide of iron. What has taken place may be shown by the following, which will be easily understood:

Oxygen } Water + Iron = Oxide Hydrogen } of Iron + Hydrogen.

So all that the chemical combination in the above means is that the iron has taken the place of the hydrogen in the water used for the experiment. If weighed it would be found as always, that the water and the iron weighed precisely the same as the oxide of iron and the hydrogen.

It is to this same principle of chemical affinity that the curious experiments of magic writing with sympathetic inks are possible.

Sympathetic Inks.

By means of these may be carried on a correspondence which is beyond the discovery of all not in the secret. With one class of these inks the writing becomes visible only when moistened with a particular solution. Thus, if we write to you with a solution of sulphate of iron the letters are invisible. On the receipt of our letter, you rub over the sheet a feather or sponge, wet with a solution of nut-galls, and the letters burst forth into sensible being at once, and are permanent.

2. If we write with a solution of sugar of lead and you moisten with a sponge or pencil dipped in water impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen, the letters will appear with metallic brilliancy.

3. If we write with a weak solution of sulphate of copper, and you apply ammonia, the letters assume a beautiful blue. When the ammonia evaporates as it does on exposure to the sun or fire, the writing disappears, but may be revived again as before.

4. If you write with oil of vitriol very much diluted, so as to prevent its destroying the paper, the manuscript will be invisible except when held to the fire, when the letters will appear black.

5. Write with cobalt dissolved in diluted muriatic acid; the letters will be invisible when cold, but when warmed they will appear a bluish green.

Secrets thus written will not be brought to the knowledge of a stranger, because he does not know the solution which was used in writing, and therefore knows not what to apply to bring out the letters.

Other forms of elective affinity produce equally novel results. Thus, two invisible gases, when combined, form sometimes a _visible solid_. Muriatic acid and ammonia are examples, also ammonia and carbonic acid.

On the other hand, if a solution of sulphate of soda be mixed with a solution of muriate of lime the whole becomes solid.

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Some gases when united form liquids, as oxygen and hydrogen, which unite and form water. Some solids when combined form liquids.

Chemical affinity is sometimes called _elective_, or the effect of _choice_, as if one substance exerted a kind of _preference_ for another, and chose to be united to it rather than to that with which it was previously combined; thus, if you pour some vinegar, which is a weak acetic acid, upon some pearlash (a combination of potash and carbonic acid), or some carbonate of soda (a combination of the same acid with soda), a violent effervescence will take place, occasioned by the escape of the carbonic acid, displaced in consequence of the potash or soda preferring the acetic acid, and forming a compound called an acetate.

Then, if some sulphuric acid be poured on this new compound, the acetic acid will, in its turn, be displaced by the greater attachment of either of the bases, as they are termed, for the sulphuric acid. Again, if into a solution of blue vitriol (a combination of sulphuric acid with copper), the bright blade of a knife be introduced, the knife will speedily be covered with a coat of copper, deposited in consequence of the acid _preferring_ the iron of which the knife is made, a quantity of it being dissolved in exact proportion to the quantity of copper deposited.

It is on the same principle that a very beautiful preparation called a silver-tree, or a lead-tree, may be formed, thus: Fill a wide bottle, capable of holding from half a pint to a pint, with a tolerably strong solution of nitrate of silver (lunar caustic), or acetate of lead, in pure distilled water. Then attach a small piece of zinc by a string to the cork or stopper of the bottle, so that the zinc shall hang about the middle of the bottle, and set it by where it may be quite undisturbed. In a short time brilliant plates of silver or lead, as the case may be, will be seen to collect around the piece of zinc, assuming more or less of the crystalline form. This is a case of elective affinity; the acid with which the silver or lead was united _prefers_ the zinc to either of those metals, and in consequence discards them in order to attach the zinc to itself; and this process will continue until the whole of the zinc is taken up, or the whole of the silver or lead deposited.

Alum Baskets.

Form a small basket about the size of the hand, of iron wire or split willow; then take some cotton, such as ladies use for running into flounces; untwist it and wind it round every limb of the basket. Boil eighteen ounces of alum in a quart of water, or quantities in that proportion; stir the mixture while boiling until the alum is completely dissolved. Pour the solution into a deep pan, or other convenient vessel, and suspend the basket in the liquor, so that no part of the basket shall touch the vessel, or be exposed to the air. Let the whole remain perfectly at rest for twenty-four hours. When you then remove the basket the alum will be found very prettily crystallized over all the limbs of the cottoned frame.

Easy Crystallizations.

Saturate water _kept boiling_ with alum; then set the solution in a cool place, suspending in it, by a hair, or fine silk thread, a cinder, a sprig of a plant, or any other trifle. As the solution cools, a beautiful crystallization of the salt takes place upon the cinders, etc., which are made to resemble specimens of mineralogical spars.

To Make a Piece of Charcoal Appear as Though it were Coated with Gold.

Dilute a saturated solution of chloride of gold with five times its bulk of water; place a thin strip of fresh burned charcoal into it, and apply heat, gradually increasing it until the solution gently boils. The heat will make the charcoal precipitate the metal on the charcoal, in the form of brilliant spangles.

To Give a Piece of Charcoal a Rich Coat of Silver.

Lay a crystal of nitrate of silver upon a piece of burning charcoal; the metallic salt will catch fire, and throw out the most beautiful scintillations that can be imagined. The silver is reduced, and, in the end, produces upon the charcoal a very brilliant appearance.

Many animal and vegetable substances, consist, for the most part, of carbon, or charcoal, united with oxygen and hydrogen, which remember, together combined, form water. Now oil of vitriol or strong sulphuric acid, has so powerful an affinity or so great a thirst for water, that it will abstract it from almost any body in which it exists. If you pour some of this acid on a lump of sugar, or place a chip of wood in a small quantity of it, the sugar or wood will become speedily blackened, that is charred, in consequence of the oxygen and hydrogen being removed by the sulphuric acid, and only the carbon or charcoal left.

When Cleopatra dissolved pearls of wondrous value in vinegar, she was unwittingly giving an example of chemical affinity. The pearl is simply carbonate of lime stored up by the oyster in layers. Consequently the precious jewels were decomposed by the greater affinity or fondness of lime for the acetic acid in the vinegar, than for the carbonic acid with which it had been before united. This was an example of inconstancy in strong contrast with the conduct of their owner, who chose death rather than become the wife of her lover’s conqueror.

Combustion.

It is necessary to distinguish between burning and the mere appearance of it. A gas flame is gas in a state of combustion, whereas the electric light is no example of it, although the wire within the glassen cylinder is red hot, and to all appearance burning. Combustion generally takes place through the strong affinity of some element, such as carbon in a substance for the oxygen in the atmosphere. In coal gas, for instance, the carbon contained in it unites with the oxygen in the air to form a colorless substance called carbonic acid gas. The latter is unable to support life, and may be called, therefore, poisonous. It is the presence of this gas which makes it unhealthy to burn many jets without proper ventilation.

Also, carbonic acid gas is given off by the lungs. It may seem curious, but it is none the less true, that breathing is a process of combustion. The blood brings to the surface of the lungs the carbon, which has resulted from the waste of the internal organs of the body. When drawing in a breath the oxygen present in the atmosphere meets the impure blood at the surface of the lungs, and purifies it by uniting with the carbon in it. Then, though oxygen has been breathed in, carbonic acid gas has been breathed out.

To prove this will be interesting: Obtain from a chemist a little lime water--two cents worth will do. It looks like ordinary water, being perfectly transparent and colorless. Pour some into a clean glass, and through a glass tube blow steadily into the water. In half a minute the hitherto colorless liquid will become milky and opaque. If allowed to stand there will fall down at the bottom of the glass a white powder.

What has happened in this case? The carbonic acid gas from the lungs has formed with the lime in the lime water a substance called carbonate of lime, which, being insoluble in water, falls to the bottom of the glass as a white powder.

If carbonic acid gas were not present in the air blown from the lungs, this milkiness would not appear, for no other gas, except this, would alter the lime water’s clearness.

Chemistry of The Air.

Before proceeding further, it will be well to perform one or two experiments, to prove that the air we breathe is by no means the simple substance it is generally supposed to be. Although it is invisible, it must be remembered that it presses with a force of over fifteen pounds to the square inch, over the whole surface of the earth. It extends, too, to a height of some forty miles above the earth, and though it cannot be seen, it can be felt in the rush of the hurricane, and heard in the roar of the tempest. It is chiefly composed of a mixture of two gases, oxygen and nitrogen.

Did the air consist entirely of the former, people would breathe too quickly, and die in a very short time in a high fever, burned up, in fact. If only consisting of nitrogen, the human race would also die, because this element is incapable of supporting life; people would be suffocated, in fact.

Therefore, a judicious mixture of the two is essential to the life of animals. Generally, in a hundred parts of air by weight there are seventy-six parts of nitrogen to twenty-three of oxygen.

Besides these two gases, there is also a quantity of carbonic acid gas in the air, given off by all the fires and animals in the world. Of course, its amount is much greater in the great towns and manufacturing centers than in country districts.

Now herein must be recorded one of these charming arrangements which Nature has designed for the benefit of her children. Carbonic acid gas is much heavier than the air, and, therefore, sinks towards the ground, where, if allowed to accumulate, would cause the death of every animal. Fortunately, however, plants breathe in through their leaves carbonic acid gas during sunshine, and break it up into carbon and oxygen. The former, they use for building up their trunks, leaves, and flowers, while during the night they give off oxygen into the air.

This is the reason why plants and trees planted in the streets so largely help to sweeten and purify the foul air of a great city.

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An experiment to prove that the atmosphere does consist of nitrogen and oxygen, may be prettily proved in the following simple manner: A glass marmalade jar, or a soup-plate filled with water, and a piece of phosphorus as large as a pea, are the only things necessary. Take very great care not to touch the phosphorus, for the heat of the hand is sufficient to set it on fire, and a terrible wound would be caused.

Place the phosphorus in a match-box on the surface of the water, touch it with a lighted match, and put the jar-mouth downwards over it to the bottom of the plate. The phosphorus burns with a dazzling brilliancy, and gives off dense white fumes. At the same time the water rises a third of the way up the jar, but not to the top, thus showing that all the invisible matter has not been consumed. The white soon settles into the water and is dissolved. The phosphorus has combined with the oxygen in the jar and forms phosphoric oxide, which dissolves in water. There is then only the nitrogen left. The disappearance of the oxygen allows the water to fill up the space it formerly occupied.

This may be followed by another experiment.

To show that oxygen is necessary for the support of combustion, fix two or three pieces of wax taper on flat pieces of cork, and set them floating on water in a soup-plate, light them, and invert over them a glass jar.

As they burn, the heat produced may perhaps at first expand the air, so as to force a small quantity out of the jar, but the water will soon rise in the jar, and continue to do so until the tapers expire, when you will find that a considerable portion of the air has disappeared, and what remains will no longer support flame.

The oxygen has been converted partly into water, and partly into carbonic acid gas, by uniting with the carbon and hydrogen of which the taper consists, and the remaining air is principally nitrogen, with some carbonic acid. The presence of the latter may be proved by decanting some of the remaining air into a bottle, and then shaking some lime water with it, which will absorb the carbonic acid and form chalk.

Into an ale glass, two thirds full of water at about 140 degrees, drop one or two pieces of phosphorus about the size of peas, and they will remain unaltered. Then take a bladder containing oxygen gas, to which is attached a stop cock and a long fine tube. Pass the end of the tube to the bottom of the water, turn the stop cock, and press the bladder gently. As the gas reaches the phosphorus it will take fire, and burn under the water with a brilliant flame, filling the glass with brilliant flashes of light dashing through the water.

Into another glass put some cold water; introduce carefully some of the salt called chlorate of potash; upon that drop a piece of phosphorus; then let some strong sulphuric acid (oil of vitriol) trickle slowly down the side of the glass, or introduce it by means of a dropping bottle.

As soon as the acid touches the salt the latter is decomposed, and liberates a gas which ignites the phosphorus, producing much the same appearance as in the last experiment.

Into the half of a broken phial put some chlorate of potash, and pour in some oil of vitriol. The phial will soon be filled with a heavy gas of a deep yellow color. Tie a small test tube at right angles to the end of a stick not less than a yard long, put a little ether into the tube, and pour it gently into the phial of gas, when an instantaneous explosion will take place, and the ether will be set on fire. This experiment should be performed in a place where there are no articles of furniture to be damaged, as the ingredients are often scattered by the explosion, and the oil of vitriol destroys all animal and vegetable substances.

Into a jar containing oxygen gas introduce a coil of soft iron wire, suspended to a cork that fits the neck of the jar and having attached a small piece of charcoal to the lower part of the wire, ignite the charcoal. The iron will take fire and burn with a brilliant light, throwing out bright scintillations, which are oxide of iron, formed by the union of the gas with the iron; and they are so intensely hot that some of them will probably _melt_ their way into the sides of the jar, if not through them.

But by far the most intense heat, and most brilliant light, may be produced by introducing a piece of phosphorus into a jar of oxygen. The phosphorus may be placed in a small copper cup, with a long handle of thick wire passing through a hole in a cork that fits the jar. The phosphorus must first be ignited; and as soon as it is introduced into the oxygen, it gives out a light so brilliant that no eye can bear it, and the whole jar appears filled with an intensely luminous atmosphere. It is well to dilute the oxygen with about one-fourth part of common air, to moderate the intense heat, which is nearly certain to break the jar if pure oxygen is used.

The following experiment shows the production of heat by chemical action alone: Bruise some fresh-prepared crystals of nitrate of copper, spread them over a piece of tin foil, sprinkle them with a little water; then fold up the foil tightly, as rapidly as possible, and in a minute or two it will become red hot, the tin apparently burning away. This heat is produced by the energetic action of the tin on the nitrate of copper, taking away its oxygen in order to unite with the nitric acid, for which, as well as for the oxygen the tin has a much greater affinity than the copper has.

Combustion without flame may be shown in a very elegant and agreeable manner, by taking a coil of platinum wire and twisting it round the stem of a tobacco pipe, or any cylindrical body for a dozen times or so, leaving about an inch straight, which should be inserted into the wick of a spirit lamp. Light the lamp, and after it has burned for a minute or two, extinguish the flame quickly; the wire will soon become red hot, and, if kept from draughts of air, will continue to burn until all the spirit is consumed.

Spongy platinum, as it is called, answers rather better than wire, and has been employed in the formation of fumigators for the drawing-room, in which, instead of pure spirit, some perfume, such as lavender water, is used; by its combustion an agreeable odor is diffused through the apartment. These little lamps were much in vogue a few years ago, but are now nearly out of fashion. Finally, all the readers of this little book should be very careful in performing all experiments. If possible, he should use a room with a stone floor and no curtains, while an outhouse with an earthen floor is still less dangerous.

Amateur Air Pump.