152 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
Iviiuriatn §fc$ricttttttrat 
Nev-York, Wednesday, May 17, 1854. 
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■-—o-o-e— 
INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT CANDLES, 
LAMPS, &e. 
Wn could heartily wish that man would act 
more like other animals in regard to his hours of 
labor and rest; like them, work and pursue 
pleasure while the sun shines, and sleep while 
the sun sleeps. How much more healthful it 
would be, not only for the whole body, but espe¬ 
cially for the eyes, and how much expense it 
would save. It costs the world more now for 
artificial light to make up at night for the cheap 
sun-light lost in the day-time, than it does to 
supply all the intellectual light of the schools. 
In other words, if every body would use all the 
sun light given to them, and no more candle or 
gas light than would then be necessary or 
healthful, the money so saved would support 
more teachers and schools than we now have. 
Which get the most money in this city, the 
gas companies, the burning-fluid men, the cam- 
phene men, and the tallow chandlers, or the 
teachers ‘l 
However, we did not sit down to moralize, 
but to talk about how light is produced. See 
that burning piece of coal. What makes it 
shine so ? Why it is nothing more nor less than 
a coating of heated, glittering diamonds. And 
the brilliant gas-light, the duller flame of the 
oil lamp, or the wax or tallow candle, and the 
cheerful blaze of the wood fire, are in like man¬ 
ner produced by masses of heated diamonds. 
Let us see how this is. 
Chemistry tells us—and proves the truth of 
what it says—that charcoal, or carbon, and the 
diamond, is one and the same thing. In the 
diamond the litllc particles of carbon or coal are 
packed together in such a manner as to present 
a beautiful crystal. In the coal these little par¬ 
ticles are loosely put together, so as to absorb 
all the light, instead of reflecting back to the 
eye the shining rays, as does the smooth sur¬ 
face of the.diamond. A piece of coal and a 
diamond, when subjected to a strong heat, both 
burn and glow alike, and both produce that 
suffocating gas which we perceive when a fur¬ 
nace of coal is burning in a close room. If we 
heat either the coal or diamond in a close vessel, 
where no air can get access, they will shine on 
for years without growing less in bulk. 
Let us study another phenomena before we 
can understand fully how gas light is produced. 
There are two gasses—invisible substances like 
air—called oxygen and hydrogen. These are 
made up of little particles so small that we can¬ 
not see them. If we take one quart of the oxy¬ 
gen gas and two quarts of the hydrogen gas 
and mingle them together, and apply a lighted 
match to the mixture, the little particles will in¬ 
stantly unite together in pairs, one particle of 
oxygen with one particle of hydrogen, and form 
little double particles of water. These little par¬ 
ticles of water thus produced will run together, 
and from our three quarts of the mixed gases, 
we shall have a few drops of water, perhaps a 
quarter of a teaspoonful. For a reason, which 
we cannot now stop to explain, these two gases 
in uniting together to form water, give out a 
great quantity of heat, which they before con¬ 
tained, but which was kept in such a hidden 
state that we could not perceive or feel it. Now, 
if before lighting these mixed gases, we had 
scattered all through them a little cloud of the 
finest charcoal or diamond dust, the heat given 
out by burning the two gases, would have made 
chese little particles red hot, and we should 
have had a brilliant flame for the instant; that 
is, the cloud of diamond or charcoal dust would 
have become glowing hot, and resembled the 
burning gas flame. In this case we see that 
three substances, or three kinds of particles, 
carbon, (coal or diamond,) oxygen, and hydro¬ 
gen, are present to make the light; the oxygen 
and hydrogen to produce heat, and the carbon 
to become heated, and produce the shining or 
light. It is the presence of these three sub¬ 
stances in a gaseous (air-like) or vapor form, 
that produces the bright flame of the gas light, 
or of the lamp or candle, and thus we see how it 
is that our lights are masses of glittering dia¬ 
monds. 
Let us now see how these particles of carbon, 
oxygen, and hydrogen, are furnished to keep 
up the flame. The substances usually burned 
to produce light are, wood, oil, tallow, lard, tur¬ 
pentine, camphene, which is refined oil of 
turpentine, burning-fluid, which is camphene 
dissolved in alcohol, rosin, tar, and bitumi¬ 
nous coal. These are almost entirely made up 
of carbon, (coal or diamond,) hydrogen, and 
oxygen. There is generally, however, very lit¬ 
tle oxygen in these, and in some of them when 
pure, none at all. 
If we drop a piece of tallow on the outside of 
a red hot stove, there will immediately rise up 
a dense mass of white smoke. If we apply a 
lighted match to this smoke it will take fire and 
produce a brilliant light. If we take a tin fun¬ 
nel, and with a cork, fit a pipe stem into the 
small end, and then place the funnel closely 
over the smoking tallow upon the stove, the 
smoke or gas will rise up through the pipe stem, 
and we can then light it, and thus have a little 
gas apparatus, and burn the same kind of gas 
that is made at our city gas works. Any of the 
substances mentioned above, such as oil, turpen¬ 
tine, rosin, &c., will produce precisely the same 
effect. When the substance is heated by the 
hot stove a change takes place among the parti¬ 
cles. What little oxygen there is unites with 
some of the hydrogen, and rises up in the form 
of watery vapor, and gives the white color to 
the smoke. The rest of the hydrogen unites 
with the carbon in little groups, 4 atoms of the 
carbon uniting with 4 atoms of hydrogen, form¬ 
ing a substance called by chemists olefiant gas, 
which is precisely the same thing as our city 
gas. This gas, then, is a kind of double vapor 
of hydrogen and carbon, (coal or diamond;) and 
it is invisible, that is, it cannot be seen. Upon 
the stove we can only see the watery vapor that 
rises with it. The air, into which this gas 
escapes through the pipe stem, contains a 
large amount of oxygen, and as soon as we 
light this gas in the air, the oxygen unites with 
the hydrogen contained in the gas and forms 
water, which is dissipated in the form of vapor. 
Hold a cold glass a little above a gas or lamp 
light for a moment, and it will become covered 
with this water, condensed upon its surface. 
As before explained, this union of oxygen and 
hydrogen to form water, produces heat enough 
to make the particles of the cloud of carbon 
red hot, and this gives us the light. The little 
diamonds, or particles of coal, are soon carried 
away in another form, having united with more 
oxygen to form another gas, but new particles 
are,continually rising up with more hydrogen, 
and thus a steady flame is kept up. 
Now let us apply our stove experiment to the 
explanation of our city gas works. In these 
they take large iron tubes, and put into them 
rosin, tar, oil, tallow, wax, a kind of bituminous 
coal which contains tar, or even wood, and they 
then close up both ends of the large tube, and 
build a fire under it till it is red hot. This heat 
acts upon the enclosed substances, just like the 
red hot stove, and changes them to vapor or 
gas. On one side of this large tube is a smaller 
iron tube, which carries away the gas as fast as 
it is formed, and conveys it into a chamber 
where it passes through water, and afterwards 
into another chamber where it comes in contact 
with lime. The water and lime wash out and 
take away from it all impurities, and the pure 
gas, composed of the united vapor of hydrogen 
and carbon, (coal or diamond,) then goes into a 
large gas reservoir, from which it is conveyed 
in pipes over the city, and is let out in little 
jets to the air, from which it gets the third 
needed substance, oxygen, and produces light. 
But precisely the same thing is going on in a 
candle or lamp. Here the hot wick of the can¬ 
dle or lamp takes the place of the hot stove, or 
of the hot tubes in the gas works. The heat of 
the wick changes the tallow, or oil, or cam¬ 
phene, &c., into the same kind of gas as is pro¬ 
duced in the gas wrnrks, and it rises from the 
wick just as it rises from the gas jet, and burns 
in the same way in the air. The only difference 
is, that we get from the gas pipe a larger 
amount of gas, made on a larger scale, and 
from cheaper materials. 
We cannot leave this subject without stating 
further, that wood and tallow are made of the 
same elements, and that the flaming from wood 
is also the burning of the same gas as in the 
candle. A very pretty experiment will illustrate 
this. Take a pistol or gun barrel, and put into 
it a few small pieces of dry wood, and then 
close up the open end with some wet clay, and 
lay the other end upon some hot coals. As 
