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
Everything being ready, take the champagne bottle that you have
prepared, from two or three others, and holding it up, to show the
company that it is clear and empty; you must desire some person to hand
you the water-bottle or jug, and then fill up the bottle with the water.
Pour some of the contents of the bottle into an unprepared glass, in
order to show that it is water; then say: “Change to champagne,” and
pour the liquid from the bottle into one of the glasses rinsed with No.
4; then pour into the glass containing _three drops_ of No. 2, and it
will change to port wine; but if poured into the glass rinsed with No.
3, it will change to milk; and if into the glass with one drop of No.
2, it will produce sherry.
Be careful in pouring the fluid from the bottle, not to hold it high
above the glasses, but to keep the mouth of it close to the edges,
otherwise persons will observe that it undergoes change of color after
it is poured into them; and, on this account, the glasses should be
held rather high.
As all the solutions used in the above trick are deleterious, they
should not be left about in the way of children, and, of course, the
fluid in the wine-glasses must not even be tasted; but if any of the
company wish to drink the wines you have made, then the tray must be
adroitly exchanged for another with the proper wines placed on it.
The Faded Rose Restored.
Take a rose that is quite faded, and throw some sulphur on a
chafing-dish of hot coals; then hold the rose over the fumes of the
sulphur, and it will become quite white; in this state dip it into
water, put it into a box, or drawer, for three or four hours, and when
taken out it will be quite red again.
The Protean Liquid.
A red liquor, which, when poured into different glasses, will become
yellow, blue, black, and violet, may be thus made: Infuse a few
shavings of logwood in common water, and when the liquor is red, pour
it into a bottle; then take three drinking-glasses, rinse one of them
with strong vinegar, throw into the second a small quantity of pounded
alum, which will not be observed if the glass has been newly washed,
and leave the third without any preparation. If the red liquor in the
bottle be poured into the first glass it will assume a straw color;
if into the second, it will pass gradually from bluish-gray to black,
provided it be stirred with a bit of iron, which has been privately
immersed in good vinegar; in the third glass the red liquor will assume
a violet tint.
The Changeable Ribbon.
Dip a rose-colored ribbon into nitric acid, diluted with eight or ten
parts of water, and as soon as the color disappears, which it will
do in a short time, take out the ribbon and put it into a very weak
alkaline solution, when the alkali will quickly neutralize the acid,
and the color will reappear.
The Chemical Chameleon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account