CHEMISTRY AND FARMING. 801 



(a potato, a loaf of bread, or any vegetable substance will an- 

 swer the same purpose,) and then, amid the multiplicity of 

 household cares, it is forgotten, and when examined is found 

 done, not brown, but black. The oven has inadvertently acted 

 the part of a charcoal manufactory. The apj»le has disap'peared 

 and in its place is found a dark and crispy sliell. In the growth 

 of the apple it took from the earth its gaseous elements', its hy- 

 drogen, its oxygen, and also its mineral rock food. From the 

 air principally it procured its carbon, in the form of carbonic 

 acid, which is a gaseous acid composed of one atom of carbon 

 united to two of oxygen. Thus luiited to oxygen, it exists in 

 the air, and although itself always intensely black, except when 

 in a crystallized state, its color is not detected by the eye. Yv^e 

 may perhaps be led to conclude that the apple, in common with 

 all other vegetable substances, is ashamed of the color of its 

 carbon ingredient, for before it can appropriate it to itself, it 

 must first expel its two oxygen attendants, and thus expose its 

 hue ; but it instantly so blends and combines it with the other 

 elements that we are unable to see it until that merciless dis- 

 organizer, heat, drives off again its more fickle and volatile com 

 panions, and then the sable element is seen in all its nakedness. 

 The undue heat of the oven has done this. While the oxygen? 

 hydrogen and nitrogen ingloriously fled, as the flame curled 

 around the iron dome, black carbon remained faithful to his 

 post. But let us try his courage a little further; let us see 

 what curious results will follow if we apply flame to the crisi)y 

 mass. Ah, now we see changes and new combinations, to which 

 perhaps the field of politics alone is capable of affording a par- 

 allel. One of the substances, oxygen, which fled so precipi- 

 tately from the oven, now seems to repent of its inconsistency, 

 and as the flame grows more intense, it rushes in to the very 

 centre of the conflict, not singly, atom by atom, but in pairs, 

 two individual atoms together, clasping one of the carbon, and 

 thus the sable bride, agahi married, not to one oxygen bride- 

 groom, but to two, floats off upon its bridal tour through the 

 air. But such unnatural unions must always prove sour, and 

 of short duration — such is the result here. The united parties 

 are acid from the start. Thus combined they constitute, in 

 fact, carbonic acid, and the unhappy union continues until some 

 beautiful plant, or flower may be, in seeming pity for the par- 



