BRITTAIN 



CHKMISTR Y IN NA TURE-STUD Y 99 



pages on "Cosmos," by a girl who brought to the exhibitions each 

 year cosmos plants in pails. These plants were in bloom and stood 

 five feet high. Another girl wrote two pages on the cultivation of 

 "Sweet Peas." Among other things she says: "This has been my 

 first attempt at planting school seeds and I am very happy to think 

 that I had such good success. My sweet peas are blooming yet, 

 while the little girl who lives next door has not had any since early 

 in the spring. * * * Sweet peas are my favorite flower and I 

 often wished to have some and now I have had my wish gratified . " 

 The object of this article is to convince teachers that the school- 

 garden is the most valuable educational equipment at the teacher's 

 command. Expensive scientific apparatus, globes, maps, and other 

 desirable things are "trifles as light as air" compared with the gar- 

 den, where pupils must labor to produce results Make a school- 

 garden this year. 



Office of Inspector of Schools, S. Silcox, D. Paed. 



St. Thomas, Ontario. 



THE FOUNDATIONS OF CHEMISTRY IN NATURE-STUDY 



III Oxidation in and by the Air 



[The first article of this series was published in The Review for Nov. 1906 

 (Vol. 2. p. 278); the second in Jan. IQ07 (Vol. 3, p. 19.)] 



The children can now see that just as carbon and water disappear 

 when they combine to form wood (Lesson 1. n. s. r. Nov. 1906. pp. 

 278-281) so carbon and oxygen gas disappeared by combining to form 

 not a solid substance but a gas — carbonic acid gas composed of the 

 carbon and oxygen chemically united (Lesson 11. n. s. r. Jan. 1907. 

 pp. 20-21). The question will naturally arise here as to whether any 

 new substance is produced when charcoal burns in the air, and 

 whether it is the same substance we obtained by burning carbon in 

 the bottle of oxygen. 



Let each pupil char the end of a dry stick, set it on fire, and hold 

 inverted a wide mouth bottle for a minute or less a short distance 

 above the flame to catch any invisible gas which may arise from the 

 flame, then cover the mouth of the bottle with the hand, quickly 

 empty a little lime-water into the bottle, and shake it through the gas, 

 still keeping the mouth of the bottle closed. Shake lime-water 

 through a bottle of air and note the difference in the result. A full 

 and free discussion will lead to the conclusion that when the charcoal 



