A course of six lectures on the chemical history of a candle : to which is added, a lecture on platinum / by Michael Faraday ; edited by William Crookes.

  • Michael Faraday
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A course of six lectures on the chemical history of a candle : to which is added, a lecture on platinum / by Michael Faraday ; edited by William Crookes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Woodruff Health Sciences Center Library at Emory University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Woodruff Health Sciences Center Library, Emory University.

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    combustion, and this is to us so interesting, that I want you to understand it as thoroughly as you do the case of a candle burning in its best possible manner. I will now make a great flame, because we need the largest possible illustrations. Here is a larger wick [burning turpentine on a ball of cotton]. All these things are the same as candles, after all. If we have larger wicks, we must have a larger supply of air, or we shall have less perfect com- bustion. Look now at this black substance going up into the atmosphere; there is a regu- lar stream of it. I have provided means to carry off the imperfectly burned part, lest it should annoy you. Look at the soots that fly off from the flame: see what an imperfect com- bustion it is, because it cannot get enough air. What, then, is happening ? Why, certain things which are necessary to the combustion of a candle are absent, and very bad results are accordingly produced; but we see what happens to a candle when it is burnt in a pure and pro- per state of air. At the time when I showed you this charring by the ring of flame on the one side of the paper, I might have also shown you, by turning to the other side, that the