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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    bustion one from another. For instance, here is a powder which is very combustible, consist- ing, as you see, of separate little particles. It is called lycopodium (7), and each of these particles can produce a vapour, and produce its own flame; but to see them burning, you would imagine it was all one flame. I will now set fire to a quantity, and you will see the effect. We saw a cloud of flame, apparently in one body; but that rushing noise [referring to the sound produced by the burning] was a proof that the combustion was not a continuous or regular one. This is the lightning of the pantomimes, and a very good imitation. [The experiment was twice repeated by blowing lyco- podium from a glass tube through a spirit flame.] This is not an example of combustion like that of the filings I have been speaking of, to which we must now return. Suppose I take a candle, and examine that part of it which appears brightest to our eyes. Why, there I get these black particles, which already you have seen many times evolved from the flame, and which I am now about to evolve in a different way. I will take this candle and clear away the gutterage, which occurs by reason