330 
AMERICAS' AGRICULTURIST, 
[August, 
mys mw mMswm 
The Doctor’s Talks. 
Last month I did not have room to say all that I 
wished about Fireworks. Those of you who have 
seen large exhibitions of these know that large 
Revolving Wheels 
are often used. These show a great circle of Are, 
often with brilliant and differently colored centers. 
These showy affairs are produced by very simple 
means. Cases like small rocket cases are filled in 
a manner similar to that described last month for 
rockets. Several 
of these are se¬ 
curely fastened 
to the circum¬ 
ference of a 
strong wheel 
which is arranged 
to revolve on a 
spindle or axle. 
When a rocket is 
fired, it is forced 
upwards, as de¬ 
scribed last month, by the stream of gas formed by 
the burning powder; if a rocket is made fast to the 
rim of a wheel, it can not go up, but the force is 
expended in sending the wheel around. Several 
cases, each filled with a different mixture, are at¬ 
tached to a wheel, and as one burns out it sets fire 
to the next, and so on. Such wheels make a circle 
of brilliant fire 20 feet or more in diameter. Beauti¬ 
ful centers and circles are produced by attaching 
to the spokes of the wheel, cases filled with colored 
fire, red, blue, etc., which simply bum, but as they 
are carried around rapidly, the effect upon the eye 
fs that of a circle of colored fire. You know that 
when a stick upon the end of which is a lighted 
coal, is swung round rapidly, it will appear to the 
eye as a circle of fire. In the same manner these 
cases attached to the wheels appear as if they 
were circles of colored fire. In large fireworks 
Figures and Names 
are often shown in fire. This is done by what is 
called “lances these are small cases, not much 
larger than a lead-pencil, and three or four inches 
long ; they are filled with a slow-burning mixture 
which produces a steady flame of different colors. 
The figures or letters to be represented are made 
of wood, and the lances are set a few inches apart 
in holes bored for the purpose, and fixed in place 
with glue. The framework itself, that it may not 
be seen, is painted black. Some pieces of fireworks 
require hundreds of these lances, all of which, for 
proper effect, must be lighted at once. To do this 
the upper ends of the lances are all connected by 
A Quick Match, 
which burns very rapidly, and lights the whole al¬ 
most with a flash. The quick match is made of 
common lamp wickiug, which is first boiled in a 
solution of saltp’etre, and is then made to take up 
all the “meal powder” 
—(which I have al¬ 
ready said was gun¬ 
powder ground as fine 
as flour), it will hold. 
This match, when dry, 
is covered with paper, 
and used to connect 
the various parts of 
the piece of fireworks. 
Aerial Bombs, or 
Flower Pots, 
as they are called, are 
rather recent in fire¬ 
works, and when well 
managed are very fine, 
as all of a sudden 
there appears, high up 
in the air, an explo¬ 
sion, followed by a 
great shower of stars, 
serpents, etc., etc. 
The cases, which are globular, are strong paper 
bomb-shells, which contain stars, etc., described 
Fig. 2.— A FOSSIL CORAL. 
last month, there is loose powder enough to burst 
them, and a short match which will set fire to the 
powder when the proper hight is reached. These 
bombs are fired from a small iron mortar, just as 
real bomb-shells are fired. What I have said about 
the making of fireworks has been to gratify the 
natural curiosity of young people to know some¬ 
thing about these interesting and beautiful things, 
and not at all as a guide in making them. I can 
assure you, from 
experience, that 
you will find the 
attempt to make 
fire works very ex¬ 
pensive, exceed¬ 
ingly dangerous, 
and the result al¬ 
together unsatis¬ 
factory. It will 
be vastly better to 
go without fireworks altogether than to attempt to 
make them, as it is a trade that requires much skill, 
which can only be acquired by long experience. 
A Fossil from Wisconsin. 
Fig. 3.— A CORAL ANIMAL. 
Master Wm. Armstrong, Racine Co., writes : “I 
have sent you a fossil, no doubt the horn of some 
animal in the long ago. I found it while I was 
plowing. Please give a description of it in your 
‘Talks,’ which I read with great interest. If you 
would like to keep it you may do so, otherwise you 
will find postage for its return.” As the fossil will 
be of much more value to the finder than to me, I 
Fig. 4.— A BRANCHING WHITE CORAL. 
returned it, and hope it may be the beginning of a 
collection of the interesting things that my young 
friend may find upon his farm or in his vicinity. I 
do not wonder that it was taken to be 
“The Horn of Some Animal.” 
The engraving (fig. 2), shows the fossil of about 
two-thirds of the real size, and in the position in 
which it grew. When placed with the larger end 
downwards it appears very much like a horn of 
some kind. A close examination of the object 
shows that it is not a horn of an animal, but 
A Fossil Coral, 
and belongs to a time in the world’s history, long, 
long before we have any reason to suppose that any 
animals of the kind that would bear a horn, existed. 
All the remains of life of that period are those of 
animals inhabiting the sea ; no land animals or even 
those of fresh water have been discovered. My 
young friend may ask how I know it to be a coral, 
and not a horn ? The broken surface on one side 
shows lengthwise tubes, and other peculiarities 
that we find in corals and never see in horn-lam 
reminded by this fossil coral of a request made 
several months ago by one of the girls to tell her 
“All About Coral.” 
It is rather curious to find a large share of the 
requests from old as well as young, are to tell “ all 
about ” something—as if any living person knew 
“all about” anything. At best we cau tell the 
Fig. 5.— RED OR PRECIOUS CORAL. 
little that we know, which is very small when com¬ 
pared with that which remains to be known. My 
young correspondent was led to ask about coral, 
from having seen some coral jewelry, ear-rings and 
a necklace, which were red and polished, and quite 
unlike the white substance she had before known 
as coral. She had read somewhere something 
about the “ coral insect,” and wished to know what 
kind of an insect it is, and how it made the coral. 
There is no animal at all like an insect concerned 
in coral making, nor is coral made at all in the 
sense in which honey-comb is made, but is a secre¬ 
tion of the animal, formed within it as much as our 
bones are formed within us. The coral animals, 
for there are many different kinds, belong to the 
Class of Polyps, 
animals that those of you who live far from the 
6ea shore, have little chance of seeing ; they are 
fleshy creatures, and their mouth or opening in the 
center is surrounded by arms or “ tentacles,” 
which the animal can extend or withdraw at pleas- 
sure. Figure 3, shows one of these coral-polyps 
magnified. These animals that produce the coral 
are able to bud and branch in various directions, 
and make sort of tree-like communities. The ani¬ 
mal forms within itself the solid substance which 
we kuow as coral, which it shapes in a great variety 
of forms. The branching white corals, which we 
often see, one of which is shown in figure 4, is 
covered on its surface with numerous openings, 
from which the animal (much like that in fig. 3), 
protruded. This and related corals help build 
up the masses of the Coral Islands. Very curi¬ 
ous is the “ Fungus-like Coral,” fig. 6, which is 
produced by a single polyp. There is a large round¬ 
ed kind, the Brain-Coral, so-called, because its 
wavy lines have much the appearance of an animal’s 
brain; sometimes corals of this form are found 
Fig. 6.— FUNGUS-LIKE CORAL. 
three feet and more across. These and a great 
number of other forms of coral are white, and 
coarse in texture from the many pores that they 
contain; the mass is almost exactly like limestone.. 
