Part 12
Rub together in a mortar, equal quantities of the crystals of Glauber salts and nitrate of ammonia, and the two salts will slowly become a liquid.
A SOLID OPAQUE MASS MAKES A TRANSPARENT LIQUID.
Take the solid mixture of the solutions of muriate of lime and carbonate of potash, pour upon it a very little nitric acid, and the solid opaque mass will be changed to a transparent liquid.
TWO COLD LIQUIDS MAKE A HOT ONE.
Mix four drams of sulphuric acid (oil of vitriol) with one dram of cold water, suddenly, in a cup, and the mixture will be nearly half as hot again as boiling water.
QUINTUPLE TRANSMUTATION.
Take five ale-glasses: place into the first a solution of iodide of potassium; into the second, a solution of corrosive sublimate, sufficiently strong to yield a scarlet precipitate with the iodide in the first glass, without redissolving, as the effect of the experiment depends on the adjustment of this beforehand; into the third, a strong solution of iodide of potassium with some oxalate of ammonia; into the fourth, a solution of muriate of lime; into the fifth, a solution of hydrosulphate of ammonia. The following changes occur.
No. 1 added to No. 2 produces a yellow, quickly changing to a scarlet; No. 2, poured into No. 3, becomes clear and transparent again; No. 3, into No. 4, changes a milky white; No. 4, poured into No. 5, produces a black precipitate.
Thus, a clear and colorless liquid is changed to scarlet; the scarlet again becomes colorless; the colorless liquid, milky white; and the white, black.
THE SAME AGENT MAY PRODUCE AND DESTROY COLOR.
Procure a bottle of chlorine, and arrange two tall cylindrical glasses: fill one half full with a dilute solution of iodide of potassium and starch, and the other with a very dilute solution of sulphate of indigo; provide each vessel with a plate glass or cardboard valve, laid on the top; carefully open the bottle of chlorine, invert it slowly over one cylindrical vessel, so as to pour out half the gas, which is very heavy; add the remainder to the other, and shake up both vessels. The chlorine will bleach the indigo, and afford a magnificent purple in the iodide of potassium and starch, because it sets free iodine, which combines with the starch, producing a purple compound.
UNION OF TWO METALS WITHOUT HEAT.
Cut a circular piece of gold leaf, called "dentists' gold," about half an inch in diameter; drop upon it a globule of mercury, about the size of a small pea, and if they be left for a short time, the gold will lose its solidity and yellow color, and the mercury its liquid form, making a soft mass of the color of mercury.
MAGIC BREATH.
Half fill a glass tumbler with lime-water; breathe into it frequently, at the same time stirring it with a piece of glass. The fluid, which before was perfectly transparent, will presently become quite white, and if allowed to remain at rest, real chalk will be deposited.
TWO BITTERS MAKE A SWEET.
It has been discovered, that a mixture of nitrate of silver with hyposulphate of soda, both of which are remarkably bitter, will produce the sweetest known substance.
VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE.
Write with French chalk on a looking-glass; wipe it with a handkerchief, and the lines will disappear; breathe on it, and they will reappear. This alternation will take place for a great number of times, and after the lapse of a considerable period.
TO FORM A LIQUID FROM TWO SOLIDS.
Rub together in a Wedgewood mortar a small quantity of sulphate of soda and acetate of lead, and as they mix they will become liquid.
Carbonate of ammonia and sulphate of copper, previously reduced to powder separately, will also, when mixed, become liquid, and acquire a most splendid blue color.
The greater number of salts have a tendency to assume regular forms, or become _crystallized_, when passing from the fluid to the solid state; and the size and regularity of the crystals depends in a great measure on the slow or rapid escape of the fluid in which they were dissolved. Sugar is a capital example of this property; the ordinary loaf-sugar being rapidly boiled down, as it is called: while to make rock-candy, which is nothing but sugar in a crystallized form, the solution is allowed to evaporate slowly, and as it cools it forms into those beautiful crystals termed rock-candy. The threads found in the center of some of the crystals are merely placed for the purpose of hastening the formation of the crystals.
EXPERIMENT NO. 1.--Make a strong solution of alum, or of sulphate of copper, or blue vitriol, and place in them rough and irregular pieces of clinker from stoves, or wire baskets, and set them by in a cool place, where they will be free from dust, and in a few days crystals of the several salts will deposit themselves on the baskets, &c. They should then be taken out of the solutions, and dried in an oven not too hot, when they form very pretty ornaments for a room.
EXPERIMENT NO. 2.--Fill a Florence flask up to the neck with a strong solution of sulphate of soda, or Glauber salt, boil it, and tie the mouth over with a piece of moistened bladder while boiling, and set it by in a place where it cannot be disturbed. After twenty-four hours it will probably still remain fluid. Pierce the bladder covering with a penknife, and the percussion of the air will cause the whole mass instantly to crystallize, and the flask will become quite warm from the latent caloric, of which we have spoken before, given out by the salt in passing from the fluid to the solid state. It is better to prepare two or three flasks at the same time, to provide against accidents, for the least shake will often cause the crystallization to take place before the proper time.
THE SPECTRAL LAMP.
Mix some common salt with spirit of wine in a platinum or metallic cup; set the cup upon a wire frame over a spirit-lamp, which should be inclosed on each side, or in a dark-lantern: when the cup becomes heated, and the spirit ignited, it will burn with a strong yellow flame: if, however, it should not be perfectly yellow, throw more salt into the cup. The lamp being thus prepared, all other lights should be extinguished, and the yellow lamp introduced, when an appalling change will be exhibited; all the objects in the room but of one color, and the complexions of the several persons, whether old or young, fair or brunette, will be metamorphosed to a ghastly, death-like yellow; whilst the gayest dresses, as the brightest crimson, the choicest lilac, the most vivid blue or green--all will be changed into one monotonous yellow: each person will be inclined to laugh at his neighbor, himself insensible of being one of the spectral company.
Their astonishment may be heightened by removing the yellow light to one end of the room, and restoring the usual or white light at the other; when one side of each person's dress will resume its original color, while the other will remain yellow; one cheek may bear the bloom of health, and the other, the yellow of jaundice. Or if, when the yellow light only is burning, the white light be introduced within a wire sieve, the company and the objects in the apartment will appear yellow, mottled with white.
Red light may be produced by mixing with the spirit in the cup over the lamp, salt of strontium instead of common salt; and the effect of the white or yellow lights, if introduced through a sieve upon the red light, will be even more striking than the white upon the yellow light.
CURIOUS CHANGE OF COLORS.
Let there be no other light than a taper in the room; then put on a pair of dark green spectacles, and having closed one eye, view the taper with the other. Suddenly remove the spectacles, and the taper will assume a bright red appearance; but if the spectacles be instantly replaced, the eye will be unable to distinguish anything for a second or two. The order of colors will, therefore, be as follows: green, red, green, black.
THE PROTEAN LIGHT.
Soak a cotton wick in a strong solution of salt and water, dry it, place it in a spirit lamp, and when lit it will give a bright yellow light for a long time. If you look through a piece of blue glass at the flame, it will lose all its yellow light, and you will only perceive feeble violet rays. If, before the blue glass, you place a pale yellow glass, the lamp will be absolutely invisible, though a candle may be distinctly seen through the same glasses.
THE CHAMELEON FLOWERS.
Trim a spirit lamp, add a little salt to the wick, and light it. Set near it a scarlet geranium, and the flower will appear yellow. Purple colors, in the same light, appear blue.
TO CHANGE THE COLORS OF FLOWERS.
Hold over a lighted match a purple columbine, or a blue larkspur, and it will change first to pink, and then to black. The yellow of other flowers, held as above, will continue unchanged. Thus, the purple tint will instantly disappear from a heart's-ease, but the yellow will remain; and the yellow of a wall-flower will continue the same, though the brown streak will be discharged. If a scarlet, crimson, or maroon dahlia be tried, the color will change to yellow; a fact known to gardeners, who by this mode variegate their growing dahlias.
CHANGES OF THE POPPY.
Some flowers, which are red, become blue by merely bruising them. Thus, if the petals of the common corn-poppy be rubbed upon white paper, they will stain it purple, which may be made green by washing it over with a strong solution of potash in water. Put poppy petals into very dilute muriatic acid, and the infusion will be of a florid red color; by adding a little chalk, it will become of the color of port wine; and this tint, by the addition of potash, may be changed to green or yellow.
TO CHANGE THE COLOR OF A ROSE.
Hold a red rose over the blue flame of a common match, and the color will be discharged wherever the fume touches the leaves of the flower, so as to render it beautifully variegated, or entirely white. If it be then dipped into water, the redness, after a time, will be restored.
LIGHT CHANGING WHITE INTO BLACK.
Write upon linen with permanent ink (which is a strong solution of nitrate of silver), and the characters will be scarcely visible; remove the linen into a dark room, and they will not change; but expose them to a strong light, and they will be of an indelible black.
THE VISIBLY GROWING ACORN.
Cut a circular piece of card to fit the top of a hyacinth-glass, so as to rest upon the ledge, and exclude the air. Pierce a hole through the center of the card, and pass through it a strong thread, having a small piece of wood tied to one end, which, resting transversely on the card, prevents its being drawn through. To the other end of the thread attach an acorn; and having half filled the glass with water, suspend the acorn at a short distance from the surface.
The glass must be kept in a warm room; and, in a few days, the steam which has generated in the glass will hang from the acorn in a large drop. Shortly afterwards the acorn will burst, the root will protrude and thrust itself into the water; and in a few days more a stem will shoot out at the other end, and rising upwards, will press against the card, in which an orifice must be made to allow it to pass through. From this stem, small leaves will soon be observed to sprout; and in the course of a few weeks you will have a handsome oak plant, several inches in height.
COLORED FLAMES.
A variety of rays of light are exhibited by colored flames, which are not to be seen in white light. Thus, pure hydrogen gas will burn with a blue flame, in which many of the rays of light are wanting. The flame of an oil lamp contains most of the rays which are wanting in the sunlight. Alcohol, mixed with water, when heated or burned, affords a flame with no other rays but yellow. The following salts, if finely powdered, and introduced into the exterior flame of a candle, or into the wick of a spirit lamp, will communicate to the flame their peculiar colors:
Muriate of Soda (common salt) Yellow. Muriate of Potash Pale violet. Muriate of Lime Brick red. Muriate of Strontia Bright crimson. Muriate of Lithia Red. Muriate of Baryta Pale apple-green. Muriate of Copper Bluish green. Borax Green.
Or, either of the above salts may be mixed with spirit of wine, as directed for Red Fire.
ORANGE COLORED FLAME.
Burn spirit of wine on chloride of calcium, a substance obtained by evaporating muriate of lime to dryness.
EMERALD GREEN FLAME.
Burn spirit of wine on a little powdered nitrate of copper.
INSTANTANEOUS FLAME.
Heat together potassium and sulphur, and they will instantly burn very vividly.
Heat a little niter on a fire-shovel, sprinkle on it flour of sulphur, and it will instantly burn. If iron filings be thrown upon red-hot niter, they will detonate and burn.
Pound, separately, equal parts of chlorate of potash and lump sugar; mix them, and put upon a plate a small quantity; dip a glass rod into sulphuric acid, touch the powder with it, and it will burst into a brilliant flame.
Or, put a few grains of chlorate of potash into a tablespoonful of spirit of wine; add one or two drops of sulphuric acid, and the whole will burst into a beautiful flame.
TO COOL FLAME BY METAL.
Encircle the very small flame of a floating night light, with a cold iron wire, which will instantly cause its extinction.
PROOF THAT FLAME IS HOLLOW.
Pour some spirit of wine into a watch-glass, and inflame it; place a straw across this flame, and it will only be ignited and charred at the outer edge; the middle of the straw will be uninjured, for there is no ignited matter in the center of the flame.
TO HOLD A HOT TEA KETTLE ON THE HAND.
Be sure that the bottom of the kettle is well covered with soot; when the water in it boils, remove it from the fire, and place it upon the palm of the hand; no inconvenience will be felt, as the soot will prevent the heat being transmitted from the water within and the heated metal, to the hand.
INCOMBUSTIBLE LINEN.
Make a strong solution of borax in water, and steep in it linen, muslin, or any article of clothing; when dry, they cannot easily be inflamed. A solution of phosphate of ammonia with sal ammoniac answers much better.
THE BURNING CIRCLE.
Light a stick, and whirl it round with a rapid motion, when its burning end will produce a complete circle of light, although that end can only be in one part of the circle at the same instant. This is caused by the duration of the impression of light upon the retina. Another example is, that during the winking of the eye we never lose sight of the object we are viewing.
WATER OF DIFFERENT TEMPERATURES IN THE SAME VESSEL.
Of heat and cold, as of wit and madness, it may be said that "thin partitions do their bounds divide." Thus, paint one half of the surface of a tin pot with a mixture of lamp-black and size, and leave the other half, or side, bright; fill the vessel with boiling water, and by dipping a thermometer, or even the finger, into it shortly after, it will be found to cool much more rapidly upon the blackened than upon the bright side of the pot.
WARMTH OF DIFFERENT COLORS.
Place upon the surface of snow, as upon the window sill, in bright daylight or sunshine, pieces of cloth of the same size and quality, but of different colors, black, blue, green, yellow, and white: the black cloth will soon melt the snow beneath it, and sink downwards; next the blue, and then the green; the yellow but slightly; but the snow beneath the white cloth will be as firm as at first.
SUBSTITUTE FOR FIRE.
Put into a cup a lump of quicklime, fresh from the kiln, pour water upon it, and the heat will be very great. A pailful of quicklime, if dipped in water, and shut closely into a box constructed for the purpose, will give out sufficient heat to warm a room, even in very cold weather. This is the source of steam vapor in theatrical representations.
LAUGHING GAS.
The above fanciful appellation has been given to nitrous oxide, from the very agreeable sensations excited by inhaling it. In its pure state it destroys animal life, but loses this noxious quality when inhaled, because it becomes blended with the atmospheric air which it meets in the lungs. This gas is made by putting three or four drams of nitrate of ammonia, in crystals, into a small glass retort, which being held over a spirit lamp, the crystals will melt, and the gas be evolved.
Having thus produced the gas, it is to be passed into a large bladder, having a stop-cock; and when you are desirous of exhibiting its effects, you cause the person who wishes to experience them, to first exhale the atmospheric air from the lungs, and then quickly placing the cock in his mouth, you turn it, and bid him inhale the gas. Immediately, a sense of extraordinary cheerfulness, fanciful flights of imagination, an uncontrollable propensity to laughter, and a consciousness of being capable of great muscular exertion, supervene. It does not operate in exactly the same manner on all persons; but in most cases the sensations are agreeable, and have this important difference from those produced by wine or spirituous liquors, that they are not succeeded by any depression of mind.
FLAME FROM COLD METALS.
Provide a bottle of the gas chlorine, which may be purchased of any operative chemist, and with it you may exhibit some brilliant experiments.
For example, reduce a small piece of the metal antimony to a very fine powder in a mortar; place some of this on a bent card, then loosen the stopper of the bottle of chlorine, and throw in the antimony; it will take fire spontaneously, and burn with much splendor, thus exhibiting a cold metal spontaneously bursting into flame.
If, however, a lump of antimony be dropped into the chlorine, there will be no spontaneous combustion, nor immediate change; but, in the course of time, the antimony will become incrusted with a white powder, and no chlorine will be found in the bottle.
Or, provide copper in fine leaves, known as "Dutch metal;" slightly breathe on one end of a glass rod, about ten inches long, and cause one or two leaves of the metal to adhere to the damp end; then open a bottle of chlorine, quickly plunge in the leaves, when they will instantly take fire, and burn with a fine red light, leaving in the bottle a greenish-yellow solid substance.
A small _lump_ of copper, or "Dutch metal," will not burn as above, but will be slowly acted upon, like the antimony.
Immerse gold leaf in a jar of chlorine gas, and combustion with a beautiful green flame will take place.
PHOSPHORUS IN CHLORINE.
Put into a deflagrating spoon about four grains of phosphorus, and let it down into a bottle of chlorine, when the phosphorus will ignite instantaneously.
Or, fold a slip of blotting-paper into a match five inches long; dip it into oil of turpentine, drain it an instant, drop it into another bottle of chlorine, when it will burst into a flame, and deposit much carbon.
MAGIC VAPOR.
Provide a glass tube, about three feet long and half an inch in diameter; nearly fill it with water, upon the surface of which pour a little colored ether; then close the open end of the tube carefully with the palm of the hand, invert it in a basin of water, and rest the tube against the wall: the ether will rise through the water to the upper end of the tube; pour a little hot water over the tube, and it will soon cause the ether to boil within, and its vapor may thus be made to drive nearly all the water out of the tube into the basin; if, however, you then cool the tube by pouring cold water over it, the vaporized ether will again become a liquid, and float upon the water as before.
GAS FROM THE UNION OF METAL.
Nearly fill a wine-glass with diluted sulphuric acid, and place in it a wire of silver and another of zinc, taking care that they do not touch each other; when the zinc will be changed by the acid, but the silver will remain inert. But cause the upper ends of the wires to touch each other, and a stream of gas will issue from them.
CAMPHOR SUBLIMED BY FLAME.
Set a metallic plate over the flame of a spirit lamp; place upon it a small portion of camphor under a glass funnel; and the camphor will be beautifully sublimed by the heat of the lamp, in an efflorescent crust on the sides of the funnel.
GREEN FIRE.
A beautiful green fire may be thus made. Take of flour of sulphur thirteen parts, nitrate of baryta seventy-seven, oxymuriate of potassa five, metallic arsenic two, and charcoal three. Let the nitrate of baryta be well dried and powdered; then add to it the other ingredients, all finely pulverized, and exceedingly well mixed and rubbed together. Place a portion of the composition in a small tin pan, having a polished reflector fitted to one side, and set light to it; when a splendid green illumination will be the result. By adding a little calamine, it will burn more slowly.
BRILLIANT RED FIRE.
Weigh five ounces of dry nitrate of strontia, one ounce and a half of finely powdered sulphur, five drams of chlorate of potash, and four drams of sulphuret of antimony. Powder the chlorate of potash and the sulphuret of antimony separately in a mortar, and mix them on paper; after which add them to the other ingredients, previously powdered and mixed. No other kind of mixture than rubbing together on paper is required. For use, mix with a portion of the powder a small quantity of spirits of wine, in a tin pan resembling a cheese toaster, light the mixture, and it will shed a rich crimson hue. When the fire burns dim and badly, a very small quantity of finely powdered charcoal or lamp black will revive it.
PURPLE FIRE.
Dissolve chloride of lithium in spirit of wine, and when lighted, it will burn with a purplish flame.
SILVER FIRE.
Place upon a piece of burning charcoal a morsel of the dried crystals of nitrate of silver (not the lunar caustic), and it will immediately throw out the most beautiful sparks that can be imagined, whilst the surface of the charcoal will be coated with silver.
THE FIERY FOUNTAIN.
Put into a glass tumbler fifteen grains of finely granulated zinc, and six grains of phosphorus, cut into very small pieces beneath water. Mix in another glass, gradually, a dram of sulphuric acid, with two drams of water. Remove both glasses into a dark room, and there pour the diluted acid over the zinc and phosphorus in the glass; in a short time beautiful jets of bluish flame will dart from all parts of the surface of the mixture; it will become quite luminous, and beautiful luminous smoke will rise in a column from the glass, thus representing a fountain of fire.
COMBUSTION WITHOUT FLAME.
Light a small _green_ wax taper; in a minute or two, blow out the flame, and the wick will continue red hot for many hours; and if the taper were regularly and carefully uncoiled, and the room kept free from the current of air, the wick would burn on in this manner until the whole was consumed. The same effect is not produced when the color of the wax is red, on which account red wax tapers are safer than green, for the latter, if left imperfectly extinguished, may set fire to any object with which they are in contact.
COMBUSTION OF THREE METALS.
Mix a grain or two of potassium with an equal quantity of sodium; add a globule of quicksilver, and the three metals, when shaken, will take fire, and burn vividly.
TO MAKE PAPER APPARENTLY INCOMBUSTIBLE.