110 FARADAY 



the lightning of the pantomimes, and a very good imitation. 

 [The experiment was twice repeated by blowing lycopodium 

 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 of the currents of 

 air; and if I now arrange the glass tube so as just to dip 

 into this luminous part, as in our first experiment, only 

 higher, you see the result. In place of having the same 

 white vapor that you had before, you will now have a black 

 vapor. There it goes, as black as ink. It is certainly very 

 different from the white vapor; and when we put a light 

 to it we shall find that it does not burn, but that it puts 

 the light out. Well, these particles, as I said before, are 

 just the smoke of the candle ; and this brings to mind that 

 old employment which Dean Swift recommended to servants 

 for their amusement, namely, writing on the ceiling of a 

 room with a candle. But what is that black substance? Why, 

 it is the same carbon which exists in the candle. How 

 comes it out of the candle? It evidently existed in the 

 candle, or else we should not have had it here. And now 

 I want you to follow me in this explanation. You would 

 hardly think that all those substances which fly about Lon- 

 don, in the form of soots and blacks, are the very beauty and 

 life of the flame, and which are burned in it as those iron 

 filings were burned here. Here is a piece of wire gauze, 

 which will not let the flame go through it, and I think you 

 will see, almost immediately, that when I bring it low 

 enough to touch that part of the flame which is otherwise 

 so bright, it quells and quenches it at once, and allows a 

 volume of smoke to rise up. 



I want you now to follow me in this point that whenever 

 a substance burns, as the iron filings burnt in the flame of 

 gunpowder, without assuming the vaporous state (whether 

 it becomes liquid or remains solid), it becomes exceedingly 





