Scientific papers Author:Charles W. Eliot Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LECTURE II A CANDLE: BRIGHTNESS OF THE FLAME—AIR NECESSARY FOR COMBUSTION—PRODUCTION OF WATER WE were occupied the last time we met in considering the gene... more »ral character and arrangement as regards the fluid portion of a candle, and the way in which that fluid got into the place of combustion. You see, when we have a candle burning fairly in a regular, steady atmosphere, it will have a shape something like the one shown in the diagram, and will look pretty uniform, although very curious in its character. And now I have to ask your attention to the means by which we are enabled to ascertain what happens in any particular part of the flame; why it happens; what it does in happening; and where, after all, the whole candle goes to; because, as you know very well, a candle being brought before us and burned, disappears, if burned properly, without the least trace of dirt in the candle stick; and this is a very curious circumstance. In order, then, to examine this candle carefully, I have arranged certain apparatus, the use of which you will see as I go on. Here is a candle; I am about to put the end of this glass tube into the middle of the flame— into that part which old Hooker has represented in the diagram as being rather dark, and which you can see at any time if you will look at a candle carefully, without blowing it about. We will examine this dark part first. Now I take this bent glass tube, and introduce one end into that part of the flame, and you see at once that something is coming from the flame, out at the other end of the tube; and if I put a flask there, and leave it for a little while, you will see that something from the middle part of the flame is gradually drawn out, and goes through the tube,and into that flask, and there behaves very differently from what it...« less