How to become a scientist : $b Giving interesting and instructive experiments in chemistry, mechanics, acoustics and pyrotechnicsWarford, Aaron A.
Science
How to become a scientist : $b Giving interesting and instructive experiments in chemistry, mechanics, acoustics and pyrotechnics
Warford, Aaron A.
Scientific recreations
When we consider that every living animal is constantly consuming
oxygen, and replacing it by carbonic acid gas, and that all burning
bodies, fires in our dwellings, furnaces, artificial lights of all
kinds, act in the same way in abstracting the oxygen from the air, and
replacing it by immense quantities of carbonic acid gas, which is a
poison to all animals who breathe, or attempt to breathe it, we must
wonder what becomes of this irrespirable gas, as it is found to exist
in the air in quantities so minute, and by what means the oxygen is
restored, and the air again made fit for respiration. This is effected
by one of those laws which the wisdom of the Creator has impressed upon
matter, by which one part of creation as it were balances another, and
all proceeds in an endless circle of change. This carbonic acid, which
is so poisonous to animal life, is the food of the vegetable world,
plants having the power of taking up the carbonic acid into their
pores; converting the carbon into their own substance, and rejecting
the oxygen, which is again respired by animals, &c. In the same way,
all animal refuse is the food of vegetables, and is used under the name
of manures.
The atmosphere contains also a variable quantity of vapor of water,
invisible as long as it is in the state of vapor, but it may be
rendered obvious by bringing any very cold body into warm air, when
the vapor will condense on the cold body in the form of small drops of
water. A tumbler of fresh-pumped water brought into a crowded room is
almost immediately covered with moisture, and it may also be seen on
bottles of wine which have been put into ice before coming to table.
Fogs are occasioned by the condensation of vapor produced by mixing
a current of warm air with a colder air. The banks of Newfoundland
are notorious for dense fogs, occasioned by the warm air brought from
the south by the great Gulf Stream, mixing with the cold air from the
Arctic regions, and thus precipitating the vapor in a visible form,
rendering everything but itself invisible. The famous London fogs
depend upon the same precipitation of the vapor of water, with the
addition of the smoke from the numerous sea-coal fires, which give it
that interesting yellow tinge for which it is so remarkable.
Aqueous vapor appears to impart a transparency to air, and permits
objects to be seen more distinctly in proportion to its quantity;
hence, when distant hills appear nearer, and objects upon them more
distinct than usual, rain may be expected, the air being fully charged
with vapor ready to be deposited on the slightest cause.
Hydrogen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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