Properties of Wood Ashes. 83 
ably hot ; and thet upper half of the ashes retained but little heat. 
In chiatry: six hours, the temperature of the ashes being much re- 
duced, I emptied the box, aad found the bottom of it on the in- 
side near the middle converted to coal, one of: the sides conside- 
rably chaner and another browned by the heat. Coals were 
found in different parts of the ashes, but I believe they were con- 
fined to those portions through which the heat did not travel. 
“The ashes used in the foregoing and the subsequent. experi- 
ments, were derived from the mixed combustion of hickory, 
beech, sugar-tree, oak, and a few other kinds of wood; and the 
sieve employed consisted of twenty four by thirty two interstices 
to the square inch. 
To what cause could I attribute the augmentation of heat and 
its downward course, which the preceding instances exhibit? 
The plausible answer was, carbon. _There, said the spirit of con- 
jecture, was the fire, burning its way into the ashes, and leaving 
successive portions of them to cool after it had consumed the 
combustible matter out of them ; travelling downward, like the 
Goth’s descent upon Rome, into regions where its fierceness could 
be fed. There, too, was the gray color of the ashes, produced, 
said conjecture, by the admixture of fine carbonaceous particles 
‘vith the pure white cineritious matter. To prove that the proper 
color of wood ashes is white, there lay the beautiful specimen with 
gossatnier habia Upon the boast hey the inendene sot ~ > undisturbed 
ture of the original wood ; - with open avensies on every side, anda 
thousand apertures within forthe free! sdinission:o of atmospheric 
gen ‘had escaped i into ato the air, leaving its white sio unshaded 
by its presence.: And how-could I better account for the various 
shades of gray which ashes present, than by supposing them to 
arise from the various proportions of the black powder intermixed ? 
And then, there were the uniform results of repeated trials by fire, 
in which something escaped out of the contents of the crucible; 
and what could this be but carbon? Such was the language of 
imagination before experiment had. fully uttered its voice. To 
pep ating these conclusions, I applied myself to other evidences; 
but these, to my- _ Poona instead iii —— 
seni my imaginings. - 
eR Se — eaeeS Wis PSR So er. S- ws : Z - se oils 
