Read Ebook: The Putnam Hall Cadets; or Good Times in School and Out by Stratemeyer Edward Shute A B Illustrator

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Ebook has 1049 lines and 49779 words, and 21 pages

PAGE

INTRODUCTION 1

THE PROPERTIES OF MATTER--IMPENETRABILITY 3

CENTRIFUGAL FORCE 17

THE SCIENCE OF ASTRONOMY 19

CENTRE OF GRAVITY 32

SPECIFIC GRAVITY 48

ATTRACTION OF COHESION 59

ADHESIVE ATTRACTION 67

CAPILLARY ATTRACTION 69

CRYSTALLIZATION 73

CHEMISTRY 81

CHLORINE, IODINE, BROMINE, FLUORINE 129

CARBON, BORON, SILICON, SELENIUM, SULPHUR, PHOSPHORUS 151

FRICTIONAL ELECTRICITY 173

VOLTAIC ELECTRICITY 193

MAGNETISM AND ELECTRO-MAGNETISM 206

ELECTRO-MAGNETIC MACHINES 211

THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH 218

RUHMKORFF'S, HEARDER'S, AND BENTLEY'S COIL APPARARATUS 230

MAGNETO-ELECTRICITY 241

DIA-MAGNETISM 247

LIGHT, OPTICS, AND OPTICAL INSTRUMENTS 255

THE REFRACTION OF LIGHT 298

REFRACTING OPTICAL INSTRUMENTS 303

THE ABSORPTION OF LIGHT 327

THE INFLECTION OR DIFFRACTION OF LIGHT 328

THE POLARIZATION OF LIGHT 335

HEAT 352

THE STEAM-ENGINE 406

INTRODUCTION.

Although "The South Kensington Museum" now takes the lead, and surpasses all former scientific institutions by its vastly superior collection of models and works of art, there will be doubtless many thousand young people who may remember with some pleasure the numerous popular lectures, illustrated with an abundance of interesting and brilliant experiments, which have been delivered within the walls of the Royal Polytechnic Institution during the last twenty years.

On many occasions the author has received from his young friends letters, containing all sorts of inquiries respecting the mode of performing experiments, and it has frequently occurred that even some years after a lecture had been discontinued, the youth, now become the young man, and anxious to impart knowledge to some "home circle" or country scientific institution, would write a special letter referring to a particular experiment, and wish to know how it was performed.

The following illustrated pages must be regarded as a series of philosophical experiments detailed in such a manner that any young person may perform them with the greatest facility. The author has endeavoured to arrange the manipulations in a methodical, simple, and popular form, and will indeed be rewarded if these experiments should arouse dormant talent in any of the rising generation, and lead them on gradually from the easy reading of the present "Boy's Book," to the study of the complete and perfect philosophical works of Leopold Gmelin, Faraday, Brande, Graham, Turner, and Fownes.

The author recollects with pleasure the half-holidays he used to devote to Chemistry, with some other King's College lads, and in spite of terrible pecuniary losses in retorts, bottles, and jars, the most delightful amusement was enjoyed by all who attended and assisted at these juvenile philosophical meetings.

THE BOY'S PLAYBOOK OF SCIENCE.

THE PROPERTIES OF MATTER--IMPENETRABILITY.

In the present state of our knowledge it seems to be universally agreed, that we cannot properly commence even popular discussions on astronomy, mechanics, and chemistry, or on the imponderables, heat, light, electricity, and magnetism, without a definition of the general term "matter;" which is an expression applied by philosophers to every species of substance capable of occupying space, and, therefore, to everything which can be seen and felt.

Thus, a block of wood fills a certain space: how is it that we can drive a nail into it? A few experiments will enable us to answer this question.

Into a glass filled with spirits of wine, a quantity of cotton wool many times the bulk of the alcohol may be pushed without causing a drop to overflow the sides of the vessel.

Here we seem to have a direct contradiction of the simple and indisputable truth, that "two things cannot occupy the same space at once." But let us proceed with our experiments:--

We have now a flask full of water, and taking some very finely-powdered sugar, it is easy to introduce a notable quantity of that substance without increasing the bulk of the water; the only precaution necessary, is not to allow the sugar to fall into the flask in a mass, but to drop it in grain by grain, and very slowly, allowing time for the air-bubbles to pass off, and for the sugar to dissolve. Matter, in the experiments adduced, appears to be penetrable, and the property of impenetrability seems only to be a creation of fancy: reason, however, enables us to say that the latter is not the case.

If we compare the flask of water to a flask full of marbles, and the sugar to some rape-seed, it will be evident that we may almost pour another flask full of the latter amongst the marbles, because they are not in close contact with each other, but have spaces between them; and after pouring in the rape-seed, we might still find room for some fine sand.

The particles of one body may thus enter into the spaces left between those of another without increasing its volume; and hence, as has been before stated, "The atoms only of bodies are truly impenetrable."

This spreading, as it were, of matter through matter assumes a very important function when we come to examine the constitution of the air we breathe, which is chiefly a mechanical mixture of gases: seventy-nine parts by volume or measure of nitrogen gas, twenty-one pae school into proper nd four parts of carbonic acid vapour in every ten thousand parts of air having the following relations as to weight:--

Specific gravity.

Nitrogen 972 Oxygen 1105 Carbonic acid 1524

This diffusive force prevents the accumulation of the various noxious gases on the earth, and spreads them rapidly through the great bulk of the atmosphere surrounding the globe.

Although air and other gases are invisible, they possess the property of impenetrability, as may be easily proved by various experiments. Having opened a pair of common bellows, stop up the nozzle securely, and it is then impossible to shut them; or, fill a bladder with air by blowing into it, and tie a string fast round the neck; you then find that you cannot, without breaking the bladder, press the sides together.

It is customary to say that a vessel is empty when we have poured out the water which it contained. Having provided two glass vessels full of water, place each of them in an empty white pan, to receive the overflow, then lay an orange upon the surface of the water of one of them, and being provided with a cylindrical glass, open at one end, with a hole in the centre of the closed end, place your finger firmly over the orifice, and endeavour, by inverting the glass over the orange, and pressing upon the surface of the water, to make it enter the interior of the glass cylinder; the resistance of the air will now cause the water to overflow into the white pan, whilst the orange will not enter. The orange may now be transferred to the other vessel of water, and on removing the finger from the orifice of the cylindrical glass, and inverting it as before over the orange, the air will rush out and the orange and water will enter, whilst there will be no overflow as in the preceding experiment. The comparison of the two is very striking, and at once teaches the fact desired.

Whilst the vessels of water are still in use, another pretty experiment may be made with the metal potassium. First throw a small piece of the metal on the surface of the water, to show that it takes fire on contact with that fluid; then, having provided a gas-jar, fitted with a cap and stop-cock, and a little spoon screwed into the bottom of the stop-cock inside the gas-jar, place another piece of potassium in the little spoon, and, after closing the stop-cock, push the jar into one of the vessels of water: as before, the impenetrability of the air prevents the water flowing up to the potassium; but, on opening the stop-cock, the air escapes, the water rushes up, and directly it touches the potassium, combustion ensues.

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