AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
281 
week, on grass alone,” we shall probably be 
able to make him such a conditional offer for 
her as will be quite a speculation for her 
owner. We want to put our finger upon the 
animal and taste her milk and butter. 
CHEMISTRY FOR SMALL AND LARGE BOYS AND 
GIRLS. 
INTRODUCTION. 
We commence to-day, a series of lessons 
on one of the most interesting and important 
subjects in the whole range of science. That 
it is interesting we hope to demonstrate in 
what will be introduced in these chapters. 
That it'is important will be believed when it is 
considered that chemistry explains a great 
portion of the changes that are daily taking 
place around and within us. It tells us how 
and Avhy fires burn, snows and rains fall, 
winds blow, food nourishes, plants grow. 
It explains the nature of soils, and fertilizers, 
and their relation to growing plants, the ac¬ 
tion of the atmosphere, and the sun’s light. 
It instructs us in the best methods of prepar¬ 
ing many kinds of food, and drinks, making 
paints, pottery-ware, porcelain, glass, paper, 
soaps, gunpowder, ink, salt, medicines, per¬ 
fumery, and various other articles adapted to 
our wants and conveniences.. 
We write these pages for those whom we 
suppose to know nothing of chemistry, and 
who have not the presence of the living 
teacher to explain the more difficult points, 
and on this account we shall use the simplest 
and plainest language possible, and occupy 
much space with details and illustrations, 
which may perhaps be tedious to some pos¬ 
sessed of quick perceptions. We wish to 
have every topic thoroughly understood. 
We ask of readers that they will commence 
at the beginning, and carefully go through 
with every paragraph and master it; and 
further, that they do not become impatient, 
but consider that every line they read will be 
of use in some subsequent part of the treatise. 
We promise you that though the first chap¬ 
ters may appear dry, devoted as they must 
be to stating facts and principles; yet as 
you advance you will become more and 
more interested, and you will find that 
chemistry well learned will be of great prac¬ 
tical use to you, whatever may be your call¬ 
ing in life. 
WHAT IS CHEMISTRY 1 
1. Chemistry tells us r what every thing we 
see is made of, and how the atoms or little 
particles composing them are put together. 
Chemistry may be better understood by 
comparing it with what is usually termed 
Natural Philosophy. 
2. I hold in my hand a piece of chalk. 
Natural Philosophy tells me about the weight 
of this chalk, whether it is light or heavy, as 
compared with wood, iron, lead, or with an 
equal bulk of water; what is its color; wheth¬ 
er it is hard or soft—in short, every thing that 
can be said about it as a mass of chalk. It 
tells us that the chalk can be broken up into 
a great number of little pieces, and these 
pieces can be still further broke into others 
so small that the unaided eye can not see the 
little particles. But every little piece, how¬ 
ever small, will still be a perfect piece of 
chalk, and have all the properties of color, 
comparative weight, &c., of the large piece 
from which it is broken. 
3. But chemistry tells us something more 
than this. It shows us that the chalk is 
made of three other substances entirely 
different from chalk itself. 
4. Give the chemist the smallest particle of 
chalk and he will, by a curious process, di¬ 
vide it into five atoms, one of which is a met¬ 
al like iron, another a little atom of charcoal, 
and the other three atoms are colorless, like 
air or pure water. Give him a lump of chalk 
weighing 50 ounces and he will divide it into 
20 ounces of a metal like iron, 6 ounces of 
charcoal, and 24 ounces of an air-like sub¬ 
stance. Or if you give him 20 ounces of the 
metal, 6 ounces of charcoal, and 24 ounces of 
the air-like substance, he will put them to¬ 
gether, and make 50 ounces of white chalk. 
The black coal, shining metal, and colorless 
atoms, Avill all be changed to a Avhite sub¬ 
stance Avhen combined together. 
5. Take one bit of red copper and another 
of white zinc, and melting them together, Ave 
have yelloAv brass. File this into the very 
smallest particles, and each little particle aviII 
still be brass; but the chemist Avill, by his 
curious processes, pick them apart, and sep¬ 
arate the red particle of copper from the 
Avhite one of zinc. 
6. The chemist Avill take a piece of steel, 
and sIioav you that it consists of very small 
particles of iron and charcoal mixed together. 
7. Everything avc see is made up of a great 
number of very small particles, called atoms. 
Grind a bit of stone to the finest poAvder, and 
yet every grain of this consists of a multi¬ 
tude of still smaller atoms, and there are 
usually three or more kinds of very different 
atoms in each little particle of the stone- 
dust. Chemistry tells us about these atoms, 
how they are put together, Iioav they can be 
taken apart and put together to form an en¬ 
tirely different substance. 
8. The Avorld is only a mass of infinitely 
small atoms, curiously arranged and grouped 
together. Chemistry enables us to separate 
these atoms and put them together in a 
different manner, to form some other sub¬ 
stance entirely different from that Avhich 
they originally produced. We intend to tell 
you Iioav to produce some of these changes, 
and explain to you certain curious laAvs 
which govern the changes daily going on 
around us. If Ave understand these, Ave 
shall not only find much to interest us, 
but also much that will be of very great prac¬ 
tical use. 
9. We shall learn to trace these little atoms 
as they change places, being found iioav in 
one body and then in another. We shall find 
a little particle of coal, for example, now 
floating in the air, then drawn into a little 
pore or mouth in the surface of a Avheat leaf, 
then carried by the circulating sap into the 
grain, and deposited there to make part of 
its bulk ; next the wheat is eaten in the form 
of flour or bread, and our little particle of 
coal gets into the blood, and is deposited in 
some part of the body, to help build up, per¬ 
haps, a muscle. When it has served its pur¬ 
pose here, it is again taken up by the blood, 
and is perhaps throAvn out in the impure 
breath, and again floats in the air, to be taken 
up by another wheat-leaf.* Or, perhaps, it 
happens to form part of the body at death. 
In this case the atom of charcoal is buried, 
along Avith others, in the earth, but as the 
body decays it escapes into the air, or per¬ 
haps is caught by a rootlet, and goes up 
into the sap of a plant growing on the grave. 
When the plant dies and decays, the atom 
goes into the air and floats about (though so 
small that avc cannot see it,) till it is taken 
up by the leaf of some other plant, to go the 
same round again. 
10. Here is the history of one atom. 
Myriads of other atoms, some of charcoal 
and others of a different kind, are going 
through the same rounds, and thus the veg¬ 
etable and animal Avorld is one continual 
change. These atoms arc all so small that 
our eyes cannot folio av them in their travels, 
but chemistry teaches us Iioav to do this. 
THREE FORMS OF MATTER. 
11. We Avish you to get a clear idea of the 
fact, that most kinds of matter may exist in 
three forms— solid, liquid, or gaseous. Take 
Avater, for example: Remove some of its 
heat, and it becomes a hard body, or a solid. 
Restore the heat, and the hard body is not 
changed in its composition, but it becomes a 
fluid. Add some more heat and it goes off 
in an invisible form—in other words, it be¬ 
comes a GAS. 
12. Set a pail full of Avater in a close room, 
and Avatcli it constantly, and though you can 
not sec Avliat becomes of it, it Avill in time 
all disappear from the pail. It takes a gas, 
or air-like form, and is mingled Avith the in¬ 
visible air. The reason of its being invisible 
is, that the atoms or particles of Avater are 
so very small, that avc cannot see them Avhen 
separated from each other. If the AvindoAvs 
or Avails are cold, a great number of these 
9 particles will be condensed together, so that 
we can see them again as avc did in the pail. 
13. Again, we put a cord of Avood or a ton 
of coal into the stove, and it disappears in an 
invisible form, and floats in the air. The 
Avood or coal is not lost; it has only changed 
from a solid to a gas form. A log of Avood 
or a mass of vegetables lies rotting, that is, 
it constantly loses particle by particle of its 
substance, Avhich goes into a gas form and 
floats in the air. These particles are from 
time to time taken up by the leaves of plants, 
or carried by rains into the soil, and they 
li find their Avay into other plants. 
14. What Ave have said of Avater and the 
decaying log is true of most other substances. 
They all change their forms from solids to 
liquids or gasses, and from gases to solids 
again. When a body burns up or decays it is 
not lost. Its invisible atoms separate from 
each other, and go into another state, or 
into other bodies. 
* Did it ever occur to you that almost the whole hulk of 
trees, grasses, grains, and of all growing plants, is ob¬ 
tained from the air through the leaves ! Weigh a box 
of earth and plant an acorn in it. Let this grow up 
into a tree weighing a hundred pounds, and though you 
put nothing in the box while it is growing but pure water, 
yet the earth will weigh but a few ounces less than when 
the acorn was first planted. Nearly all the charcoal and 
other substances in the tree have been gathered from the 
air by the leaves. If you strip off the leaves as fast as 
they start out, the tree will not increase in size,-because 
you have destroyed its mouths. 
