The most important difference between a solution and an emulsion is that the particles in an emulsion are very much larger than those in a solution; but for practical purposes that often does not make much difference. You dissolve a grease spot from your clothes with gasoline; you make an emulsion when you take it off with soap and water; but by either method you remove the spot. You dissolve part of the coffee or tea in boiling water; you make an emulsion with cocoa; but in both cases the flavor is distributed through the liquid. Milk is an emulsion, vinegar is a solution; but in both, the particles are so thoroughly mixed with the water that the flavor is the same throughout. Therefore in working out inferences that are explained in terms of solutions and emulsions, it is not especially important for you to decide whether you have a solution or an emulsion if you know that it is one or the other. HOW PRECIOUS STONES ARE FORMED. Colored glass is made by dissolving coloring matter in the glass while it is molten. Rubies, sapphires, emeralds, topazes, and amethysts were colored in the same way, but by nature. When the part of the earth where they are found was hot enough to melt stone, the liquid ruby or sapphire or emerald, or whatever the stone was to be, happened to be near some coloring matter that dissolved in it and gave it color. Several of these stones are made of exactly the same kind of material, but different kinds of coloring matter dissolved in them when they were melted. Many articles are much used chiefly because they are good _emulsifiers_ or good _solvents_ (dissolve things well). Soap is a first-rate emulsifier; water is the best solvent in the world; but it will not dissolve oil and gummy things sufficiently to be of use when we want them dissolved. Turpentine, alcohol, and gasoline find one of their chief uses as solvents for gums and oils. Almost all cleaning is simply a process of dissolving or emulsifying the dirt you want to get rid of, and washing it away with the liquid. Do not forget that heat helps to dissolve most things. _APPLICATION 63._ Explain why clothes are washed in hot suds; why sugar disappears in hot coffee or tea; why it does not disappear as quickly in cold lemonade; why you cannot see through milk as you can through water. INFERENCE EXERCISE Explain the following: 381. A kind of lamp bracket is made with a rubber cup. When you press this cup against the wall or against a piece of furniture and exhaust the air from the cup, the cup sticks fast to the wall and supports the lamp bracket. 382. You can take a vaseline stain out with kerosene. 383. If the two poles of an electric battery are connected with a copper wire, the battery soon becomes discharged. 384. Electric bells have iron bars wound around and around with insulated copper wire. 385. Piano keys may be cleaned with alcohol.