i l "‘ 
tea pounds of dry lmy, and should bum it 
aud weigh Iho ashes, and then subtract the 
weight of the ashes from the ten pounds, I 
should know exactly how much came from 
the ground, and how much from the air. 
Johnny was pretty near right in this. The 
ashes are the minerals, such us lime, potash, 
tlint, and some others that the plant takes 
from the earth, but 
i:' s . - i ? 1 there is another and 
a very curious sub¬ 
stance, called annul)- 
nia, that also enters 
llmiiigli 11,0 mo,-.. 
fee 1 ItilffRps \ ^ This is not left in 
||||| the ashes, but passes 
^ r off with the smoke 
k.l., la ..TO ... 
handsome, and who 
often asked Johnny 
for a lock of hair to 
light his pipe With. lie remembered how, 
only the day before, Dick had carried her 
hooks for Alice, all the way home from 
school, and he grew very angry against Dick. 
“ I’ll knock the spots off him yet,” said ho, 
and went and drew his chemistry out from 
under the eaves, where he had hid it. Then 
he came hack to the window, and sat there 
studying till the sun went. down. 
there is much of it, the gas sinks ; very often 
it, is found in large quantities in the bottom 
of old wells, and when people go down in 
them the gas chokes them to death. It is 
just the same in coal mines sometimes, and 
that is why the miners call it ‘ choke-damp.’ ” 
“ That will do for this time,” said his 
father; “ but Johnny must go and stay in 
but if the two substances unite, so that you 
cau’t get back your solid in this way, then 
you have a chemical combination. Now I 
put vinegar— 
Just at this moment Sally broke in with, 
“ Oh, what a learned man ! You will make 
your fortune, Jack, with your saleratus aud 
vinegar.” 
“ Tell us what you 
put tho vinegar in \ 
mother 
ttcattcrnal 
PERSONAL NOTES. 
HOW JOHNNY STUDIED SCIENCE. 
BY UNCLE OATBTRAW. 
PrlilCK Gortcliakoir. 
The portrait, wc give on last page, is that 
of the Russian diplomatist, whose Christian 
name is Alexander Mich\klow risen, 
cousin of the famous general who defended 
Sevastopol in 1855-0. lie was horn in 1808, 
made his entry into diplomatic service at the 
Congress of Laybach and Verona, us attache 
in the suite, of M. Nesselrode. In 1824 he 
became Secretary to the Ambassador at. Lon¬ 
don. In 1880 lie was made Charge d’Adairs 
at Florence; in 1882 he was attached to the 
Legation of Vienna; in 1841 he received the 
title of Privy Councillor. In 1818-0 he was 
Plenipotentiary at the German Diet. In 1854 
ho was appointed Ambassador to Vienna. 
In 1857he returned to St. Petersburg, to re¬ 
place M. Nesselrode as Minister of Foreign 
Affairs. 
Since tho Crimean War, Gortchakoff 
bus scarcely been heard from, in a way to 
make the world t hink of him, until his recent 
note announcing that Russia refused to be 
bound longer by the Treaty of 1850, and 
which caused so much consternation in Lug- 
laud, and awakened such a feeling of appre¬ 
hension all over the world, that Europe 
would bo precipitated into a general war 
thereby. 
Prince Gortchakoff is, or seems to be, 
backed heartily by the Russian people in this 
matter, and apparently has the sympathy of 
Prussia and the present Administration of 
the United States. He does not yield one 
inch from the position ho assumed in the out¬ 
set. England must back out or light, ap¬ 
parently. 
This is not tho first lime that Prince Gort- 
ciiakOff has spoken haughtily to foreign 
countries, lie opposed the meddling of the 
Western Powers in the affairs of the Two 
Sicilies ; in 18(12, when Napoleon III. wanted 
to recognize the Boutheren Confederacy, he 
would have nothing to do with the matter ; 
and in 1808, when Russia was engaged in 
putting down the Polish Insurrection, and 
Austria, France, and England proffered some 
highly moral advice, the Prince courteously 
bade these Powers mind their own business, 
and look at home. And the polite notes he 
is now interchanging with t.he English Min¬ 
ister, Gladstone, do not indicate, in any 
degree, any diminution of dignity, firmness 
nor of consciousness of power, lie has 
hided Jiis time since 1850, and is prepared 
now to make the most of it. 
Master John Scroggs was thirteen years 
old. He had blue eyes aud red hair, and a 
nose that turned up at the end. The boys 
at school made fun of his mouth, telling 
him that if it was not for his ears, it would 
go quite round his head. His father aud 
mother called him “JonNNY,” of course. 
Ilis sister Sally called him “ Jack,” be¬ 
cause it tormented him, and that was the 
ouly way she could pay him off for not 
minding her. Most of the neighbors call' d 
him that “ awful boy,” for he was generally 
in mischief, and very olleu in trouble. 
But it happened one time in June, that lie 
was very quiet, and kept out of everybody's 
way, which is a great thing for a boy to do. 
His father said that Johnny was getting to 
be quite a man ; bis mother remarked that he 
was not such a bad boy after all; but Sally 
stuck to it that he was “ conjuring up some¬ 
thing, it wouldn’t long before they would 
find him out in some scrape or other.” All 
these sayings had some truth in them, but 
Sally’s was the nearest right. For Johnny 
liad struck a new thing, and was busily 
thinking about it. He had traded away his 
buckhorn-handled knife with auotker boy 
for a dog’s-eared book on chemistry. He 
read in it how substances combine with 
each other to make new ones having differ¬ 
ent properties, and this was wonderful to 
him. He found, loo, how some of these 
substances enter into soils, and from these 
into plants,aud from the plants into animals 
in curious and endless variety. So he kept 
thinking, thinking all the while, so that he 
had no time for amusement; lie wished so 
much to understand these things that he had 
never heard of before, aud which seemed so 
strange. The book told how to make many 
experiments, and Johnny picked out those 
that needed only cheap and common mate¬ 
rials, and said to himself that he would try 
some of them. He would enjoy it better, he 
thought, than stoning Mr. Twinlng’s old 
gray cat, or setting “ Buff” harking at 
Smith’s great flock of geese. Thus Johnny 
commenced to travel a very long, and a very 
steep road,—the road of science, aud this is 
how it was 
One afternoon his mother went into the 
pantry, and there was JonNNY, with a howl 
on the shelf before him, having a liquid 
foaming and bubbling in it. 
“ What, are you doing here?” said she. 
“ Nothing,” said Johnny, sturdily, “ ouly 
seeing the carbonic acid come out.” 
“ Good gracious! what is that ?” asked liis 
mother, as she looked over his shoulder. 
Just then Mr. Scroggs 
and Sally came in, to 
find what was the mat- A ^ 
*' er ' 
- n: 1 ... , . 
that you call saleratus HHl||lSfil|jlB 
is made up two 
things —a gas and a 
S' .'ll 1 1 Siltc Mao'. ‘ The 
gas is carbonic acid, 
just the same that is Ws-T ~ 
formed when you burn |l l§j|l|Bjilllj^s 
charcoal; the solid is 
soda, which is found in 
salt, such as .you give 
to cattle, only in the 
salt it is united with rlf? - 
another gas, instead of fegvj; T - 
carbonic acid, but you 
notice when the gas jgiF 
and the sol id unite, 11 “Y 
Sally; “you are show- 
ing off at a great rate.” 
saw a softened look in ._ » 
the old man’s eye. 1 -* 1 ' '"""S 
“ You see, father, I mix 
the saleratus with wa- | \ v 
ter, and it is all dis- \ \f] 
solved; this is what the ~ 
book calls a ‘solu- ^ _ — — 
tion.’ 
“ That’s a long word,” 
said his mother. 
“ I don’t care how - inwtfTqgg 
long the words are,” 
answered lie, “ if I only 
understand them; and 
I understand what a ~~ — 
soluliou is. If you put 
a solid substance into a __— 
liquid, and it dissolves 
out of sight, and you 
can get t lie same solid back again by boiling 
away the liquid, then you have a solution; 
* A soUd, in chemiHtry. is any substance that is 
neither liquid like water, thick like molasses, or a mis 
like air. 
She began 
to be quite proud of 
Johnny. She had 
no idea he knew so 
much. 
“Why, you see, 
vinegar itself is a so¬ 
lution of acetic acid 
(so the chemistry 
says) in water. This 
acid is stronger than 
the carbonic acid, 
and when 1 pour it 
into the saleratus so¬ 
lution, it takes hold 
of the Soda in the 
saleratus and drives 
out the carbonic acid. 
The carbonic acid 
comes out. in the form 
of gas and bubbles 
up through the water 
and makes it. foam.” 
“ But I don’t see,” 
grumbled Bally, 
“ how the aectic acid, 
ns you call it, can 
drive out the oilier 
gas that was united 
with the soda first.” 
By tliis time John¬ 
ny thought lie would 
get off pretty easily 
for meddling in the 
pantry, and lie could 
afford to be saucy to his sister. ” You 
sec, Sally," he answered, “ the principle 
is just, the same as this: Bam Smiles used 
to come to see you steady; hut you liked 
Tom Souris the best, and so Tom sticks to 
you like wax, and Bam has gone away and 
don’t come anymore. It is just the same 
principle, Sally, just the same, exactly.” 
At this, the old gentleman winked to 
Sally’s mother, and the old lady smiled a 
little. As for Sally, she wouldn’t give up 
to Johnny, and she said, sharply:—“In¬ 
deed, Mr. Impudence! is there anything 
more you can tell us about this wonderful 
carbonic acid gas?” 
“ Yes, there is,” answered he; “the book 
says it is a wonderful thing. Water absorbs 
a great deal of it, and this water with tbc gas 
in it can dissolve lime and many other miner¬ 
als In the soil better than pure water can do; 
aud this helps very much to make the soil 
SRUCINC-f THE C'AIiJLiONIC A .CUD COME OUT 
the garret till supper to punish, him for turn¬ 
ing the pantry topsy turvey without his 
mothers leave." 
And so Johnny trundled up stairs, aud 
sat down by the window, looking- out on the 
orchard and the fields beyond. lie remem¬ 
bered wbat the book had said—that while a 
plant is growing, the liuy roots take up min¬ 
erals dissolved in water, and carry them up 
in the sap into the stems, and branches, and 
leaves, to add to their substance, while the 
leaves themselves are sucking in carbonic 
acid from the air for the. same purpose. He 
thought, how some of the gas from the sale¬ 
ratus might, perhaps, even then he entering 
into the Peony that grew by tho gate, and 
t hat the hickory ashes he had put (a handful 
to each hill) in the cornfield, might be creep 
ing up the juicy stalks, to make the droop¬ 
ing blades still greener. He recalled, too, 
that the book said that if a plant is burned, 
About 
Haying noticed an inquiry relative to me¬ 
teors, in a late number of the Rural New- 
Yorker, I would, in reply to that inquiry, 
respectfully "submit the following:—Meteors, 
or shooting stars, are detached portions of 
chaotic and uncondensed matter which the 
earth, in its orbit, frequently meets. This 
matter, coming in contact with our atmos¬ 
phere, becomes suddenly ignited. As the 
earth has a natural attraction for matter, the 
Cleu. I,eo on lUenile mill Grant. 
We do not know who is responsible for 
the following, which we find in an exchange: 
“ When the writer next saw him, (Lee,) lie 
rode by his side as a 
— —temporary staff officer, 
tjfev detailed for tho day. 
^ ss \ It was on the occasion 
\ of Lee’s first collision 
\ < -’ eUi M f 5ADE 0,1 
' the llapidun. The 
’jiy fight, amounted to but 
it S ittle> * ml l ! ,C °^ casl0 ! 1 
waM Jul compliment paid to the 
' :r jL n< w ^J^dcommand- 
laBr t ' Jg i ® omc 0,10 asked Gen. 
I .i' 1 * - ) j Lee what he thought 
'' ^ r \> i;, tn ^ 
M>' \"e a ilhievcr com- 
i commit one, he will 
1,1 ,al<C 
tie fields; but the only 
^Mgrei' remaining occasion to 
men,K)ne< * i,e,-e was 
" ' v 'k” n the General wa3 
house, the conversation 
jaRgik||~illjllgp war matters, and some 
CARIBOU HTJINrTIIINra- TINT NIBW BRUNSWICK 
the materials that arc drawn from the ground 
remain in the shape of ashes, while what came 
from the air goes into the air again, in the 
form it first had—that of carbonic acid 
l think, said he to himself, if 1 should take 
ignited substance is drawn towards it, the 
gaseous substance being consumed, and the 
mineral portion, if of sufficient density, 
lodged upon its surface, in tho form of a 
stone.—L. C. West, Kalamazoo Co ., Mich. 
rich. The Chemistry says, (but I shall have 
to study it hard before I understand it,) that 
the leaves of plants take carbonic acid from 
the air, and use it in making the wood and 
all the rest. It is heavier than air aud when 
