You observe the shadow of the candle and of the wick; then there is a
darkish part, as represented in the diagram, and then a part which is more
distinct. Curiously enough, however, what we see in the shadow as the
darkest part of the flame is, in reality, the brightest part; and here you
see streaming upwards the ascending current of hot air, as shewn by
Hooke, which draws out the flame, supplies it with air, and cools the
sides of the cup of melted fuel.
I can give you here a little further illustration, for the purpose of
shewing you how flame goes up or down; according to the current. I have
here a flame—it is not a candle-flame—but you can, no doubt, by this
time, generalise enough to be able to compare one thing with another. What
I am about to do is to change the ascending current that takes the flame
upwards into a descending current. This I can easily do by the little
apparatus you see before me. The flame, as I have said, is not a candle
flame, but it is produced by alcohol, so that it shall not smoke too much.
I will also colour the flame with another substance[6], so that you may
trace its course; for with the spirit alone you could hardly see well
enough to have the opportunity of tracing its direction. By lighting this
spirit-of-wine, we have then a flame produced; and you observe that when
held in the air, it naturally goes upwards.
[Illustration: Fig. 5]
You understand now easily enough why flames go up under ordinary
circumstances—it is because of the draught of air by which the combustion
is formed. But now, by blowing the flame down, you see I am enabled to
make it go downwards into this little chimney—the direction of the
current being changed. Before we have concluded this course of lectures,
we shall shew you a lamp in which the flame goes up and the smoke goes
down, or the flame goes down and the smoke goes up. You see, then, that we
have the power in this way of varying the flame in different directions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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