1 96 FLO WE R- LAND. 



dioxide, and as I want you to remember it, I will 

 show you what a deadly gas it sometimes is. So we 

 will light our bit of candle. Now you shall lower it 

 down into the jar ; and I will hold the cork upon the 

 jar's mouth to close it. At first the candle burns all 

 right, but soon it grows dim and then, yes, now you see 

 it has gone out. Why is that ? The burning candle 

 has used up the good air of the atmosphere upon 

 which its flame could burn or live, and the kind of air 

 of which the jar is now full is a gas in which the 

 candle cannot burn any more. Let us take the candle 

 out, and light it, and see if this is really so. Yes, as 

 soon as you lower the candle into the jar it goes out. 

 Now you and I every moment we live are using up 

 the good air of the atmosphere, just like the burning 

 candle did in the pickle jar, and breathing out 

 instead of it the other kind of gas which will not 

 support our life any more than it would the flame of 

 the candle. 



Have you ever read about the Black Hole of 

 Calcutta ? It was a small room in which one hundred 

 and forty-six British prisoners were shut up by the 

 Sepoys during the Indian Conquest. It was so small 

 that they were terribly crowded, and when the doors 

 were opened in the morning only twenty-three of all 

 the one hundred and forty-six were still alive. They 

 had been breathing in the good air, and breathing 

 out the bad gas, until the atmosphere became such 

 that it would hardly support life any longer ; so 

 almost all of them died, like the candle flame went 



