that everywhere in our bodies there are little 
particles that become done with; they are 
played out, and must be replaced by live 
particles from t.hc fresh blood. These little 
dead particles in the flesh are taken up by 
very small vessels, so small that you cannot 
see them, and are carried into the veins, and 
the veins convey them in the dark-colored 
blood into the lungs. In the lungs the oxy¬ 
gen of the air we draw in burns them up 
and the carbonic acid is breathed out at 
every breath." 
“ And then," said his sis¬ 
ter, “ I suppose some of the 
food we cat must be carried 
to where these dead parti¬ 
cles are taken up and put 
in their places, or else wo 
should burn up to nothing 
a little at a time.” 
*' That is what the book 
says, Sally. The part of 
the food that is most useful 
is separated from the rest 
and goes into the arteries, 
and is carried out to re¬ 
place the particles that are 
taken up and carried by 
veins back to the lungs, to 
be burned.” 
"Is there any way to 
prove that carbonic acid 
comes out with the breath 
or from the fire, or do you 
only guess at it?" 
"Nobody has any bust- 
ness to guess anything in 
chemistry,” answered 
Johnny, with much dig¬ 
nity. "Everything ought 
to be proved until there is ^ ’ 
no chance of mistake 
There is a very simple and 
very easy way of showing ~ ; ■ 
the presence of carbonic 
acid. I wish I had some / 
lime water.” tv ISglglJ 
"I think here is some, - N aj 
Johnny. You dropped a " V'- wlii 
piece of the lime into the 
water in the wash basin. - / 
That was an hour ago; it ~ 
must be lime water by this 
lime.” 
“Was it cold or hot 
water?” . A la 
“ Cold.” 
“That is all the better, Sally, because 
cold water dissolves nearly twice as much 
lime as hot. Now pour the lime water into 
a tumbler, and bring me a tobacco pipe.” 
Johnny was just like other boys, and 
liked to show off and order bis sister about 
when he had a chance. As soon as she 
handed him the things lie put one end of 
the pipe in his mouth and the. other into the 
water in the tumbler and began to blow bis 
breath through It. Pretty soon the water 
began to turn milky. 
“ You see,” said he “ the carbonic acid 
unites with the lime in the water and forms 
a carbonate of lime. This is not soluble in 
water, and so separates in this white form 
and whitens the water. If I should keep on 
blowing until all the 
2, tt n JOHMT SHowme 
on the ground and his heels in the air. 
“ Johnny, Johnny!” cried his mother 
from the window. “ What is the matter ?” 
" I’ve lost my center of gravity,” said he 
dryly, as he got up; " and I guess it’s time 
to go for the cows.” 
" We must have the hydrogen gas this 
evening," said Sally ; and as Johnny turned 
to say all right he noticed how much prettier 
his sister looked than he ever thought she 
did. Poor Sally ! she had been drawn out 
of herself a little by this long talk, ami she 
was all the better for it. She was a lonely 
kind of a girl, and was very cross sometimes. 
She had a lover once—not Tom Souhe ; she 
didn’t care for him ; but oue she kuew when 
they both were children younger than 
Johnny. But he had grown up to be a 
great lean, long, lanky fellow, and three years 
ago had sailed in a whale ship for the far 
that stammers and rambles and stumbles, 
that stagnates here, and there overflows into 
waste marsh, relieved only by thick patches 
of powdery bulrush, ami such bright flower- 
age of barren blossoms ns is bred of the fogs 
and the fens—such a style gives no warrant 
of depth or soundness in the matter thus 
arrayed and set forth. 
MEMORIES OF THE PAST 
ncafienal 
Down* the sen of time are floating 
Fairy ships, with sails of white— 
Springing lightly o’er tho waters. 
Dancing merrily in tho light; 
Bringing to our raptured vision 
Happy thoughts tintl pnucoful dreams— 
Loaning us in paths of pleasure, 
Whero wegase on welcome soones. 
HOW JOHNNY STUDIED SCIENCE. 
BY UNCLE OATSTRAW, 
[Continued from page 81.J 
When the leach was fiuished, Sally sat 
down on the wash-bench near by, and 
Johnny perched himself on the wood-pile. 
Sally wiped her face with her apron, and 
then began very pleasantly to ask about 
carbonic acid. She began to take an inter¬ 
est in her brother’s study, for she saw that 
knowledge often helps people to save time 
and trouble, which amounts to the same 
thing ns saving money. "What is it made 
of," said she, "and where does it come 
from ?” r 
“ It’8 one of the very greatest things in 
creation,” said Johnny; “ at least, the more 
I read my chemistry the more 1 think so. 
It is composed of carbon and oxygen—six 
parts by weight of carbon and sixteen of 
oxygen. Both of these are elements. That 
is, they cannot be separated into other sub¬ 
stances. You can combine them with other 
elements to form new compounds, but you 
cannot divide them into new ones. Carbon 
has many forms, but the most common one 
is coal. Oxygen is a gas which exists in the 
air we breathe. Indeed, it ji that part of 
(lie air which enables us to live. The air is 
composod of one-fifth of oxygen mixed 
with four-fifths of another gas, nitrogen. 
When we burn coal it unites with oxygen 
from the air, and carbonic acid is formed.” 
" Then carbonic acid must be formed 
whenever carbon or any substance contain¬ 
ing carbon is burned,” said Sally. 
" Of course it is. It is going up the 
chimney all the time when there is a fire in 
the stove. Wood, aud resin, aud fat, and 
most common substances that burn, contain 
carbon; and when they are burned, the car¬ 
bon iu them combines with oxygen just the 
same as when coal, which is nearly pure 
carbon, is burned.” 
"Then when anything is burned up, it 
simply combines with oxygen, and that 
is all.” 
“ Very much so. Only when the substance 
combines with the oxygen so cpiickly that 
we can feel the heat or see the flame, we call 
it combustion or burning; but. when it goes 
on very slowly, we call it decay or eremacau- 
sis; for when a thing is rotting, it. is only com¬ 
bining very slowly with oxygen, and if it has 
carbon in it, the substance will give off car¬ 
bonic acid, just as if it was consumed by fire, 
only a great many limes more slowly. There 
is also the combination of metals, like iron, 
with oxygen, and this goes by the name of 
rusting or oxidation. 
“ But, Johnny, bow do you learn all of 
those hard words ?” 
“ O, I study each word and its definitions, 
until I am quite sure I can remember all 
about it.” 
Johnny was right. It is necessary to learn 
a good many bard words in studying chem¬ 
istry, aud there is nothing like doing things 
thoroughly as you go along. 
" Then, Johnny, all substances unite with 
oxygen.” 
" Almost any substance can be made to 
unite with oxygen in some way. There is a 
gas, hydrogen, which combines with eight 
times its weight of oxygen to form water. 
It is curious that two gases should unite to 
form a liquid, isn’t it? This hydrogen is cu¬ 
rious enough, though, if we take it alone by 
itself. It is the lightest substance iu the 
world, and the best gas for filling balloons. 
If you should make a balloon about a foot 
in diameter, aud fill it with hydrogen, it 
would lift an ounce bullet a mile or two high 
in the air.” 
" Come back to your text, J ohnny,” said 
Sally. (You notice she didn’t call him 
Jack any more.) “ What about the compo¬ 
sition of water ?” 
As I said a minute ago, Sally, water is 
made of one part by weight of hydrogen 
aud eight of oxygen. If you heat water 
warm enough to convert it into steam, it 
will occupy seventeen hundred and filly 
times as much space as it did before; that is 
how the steam engine-” 
“ Never mind the steam engine now. Can 
you separate the hydrogen from the oxygen 
in the water, so as to prove that water is 
composed of these two ?” 
" Yes, I can take the hydrogen out of the 
water and then combine it with ox-ygen 
again to form the water; but I shall have to 
use sulphuric acid aud some bits of iron and 
zinc.-.” 
“ That will be too much trouble, Johnny, 
just now. We will try and have the ex¬ 
periment this evening. Let us go back to 
the carbonic acid. I once heard a doctor 
Tlio Institute Problem. 
Noticing that the “Institute Problem” 
has not been definitely settled yet, I take the 
liberty to “ cast in my mite.” 
If the writer signing him 
self" Jack,” understood the 
rule for getting a mean pro¬ 
portion a 1 between two 
numbers, lie would not 
query where Amos Thorn¬ 
burgh gets the 173.2. If 
the signs in common use in 
our arithmetics were used in 
demonstrating a problem, 
there would bo no trouble. 
I now take the liberty to 
give a concise solution, and 
what 1 deem the true au- 
^—n swer to the problem. It is 
S j the same as the one given 
1 by Messrs. Wilson aud 
Thornburgh. First, a 
( mean proportional between 
two numbers is found by 
multiplying the extremes 
and extracting tlie square 
root of t.bc product, second, 
to find the solidity of the 
the frustum of a pyramid— 
vide Davies' Legendre, Prob¬ 
lem 7th. 
288. Rule:—Add together 
the areas of the two bases 
of the frustum and a mean 
: proportional between them, 
and then multiply the sum 
by one-third the altitude. 
Hence wo have the fol¬ 
lowing solution :— Reduc¬ 
ing to decimals, we have 
® r#® 10.35x10.8=172.2 sqr. of 
J fe? .1 mean proportional, in this 
case its area. (10.25) JJ"'V 
0625, area of small end. 
(16.8)2*282.2*1, area of large 
end. 172.2x105.0625x283.- 
34—55&.5025, sum of the 
111.) ftrca 0 f the three bases of 
frustum , 559.5025x72 inches, one third the 
altitude-40284.18 cubic inches; 40284.18-:- 
144—279.7512 feet boards—28 cubic feet and 
540.18 cubic inches. I do not give this solu¬ 
tion thinking it to be new to all that have 
taken an interest in this problem, but that 
all such mathematical students as Jack and 
Wm. M. Richardson, and others, may sec 
what is the accurate solution.—B. M. Bill¬ 
ings, Earlville. N. Y. 
Cumbrous bnreos o'er the billows 
Sink anti rise upon tho swell— 
DroopluK sails us dark ns midnight 
Lava the deop whom demons dwell: 
Forcing now upon our senses 
Ominous thoughts of direful deeds. 
Luring os through briers and brambles, 
Paths strewn thick with noxious weeds. 
“Memories of Hie past'’ are pleasant, 
If of pure und holy deeds ; 
Happiness will ho ours evor 
If we will but sow tho seeds. 
Round us hover bright-winged visions. 
Bringing to our minds again 
Happy thoughts of hours of pleasure. 
Leaving on the soul no stain. 
Deeds of darkness over linger 
Round, und over mem Ties’ shrine,— 
Shutt ing out all hopes of heaven, 
And bright thoughts of things divine 
"It* In vnlu we bid them sever 
The dark chain whloh binds us fast. 
For wo. ttnd In memory over 
They still linger till the last. 
Newflold, N. Y., .Ian., 1871. 
terms for Rnralist 
AGNES BUBMANN 
Translated from the Norwegian of Chrlstof Jansen 
for Moore's Rural New-Yorker. 
[Continued' from page 98, Inst No.J 
CHAPTER VII. 
The Town Visitor. —Peasants. 
Never had the servant at the Parsonage 
had so much to do as now ; the whole house 
was in commotion. Matiiilde bail been 
there but a lew days, during which she had 
visited the larder, store closets, brew-house, 
dairy, all which were quite new to her 
She and the Pastor were already good friends 
He only shook his bead at all her nonsense, 
thinking her clever. Mathji.dk understood 
how to manage him. She had not been licr 
mother's favorite for nothing; and so, when 
she. put her arm rouud hfeneclf and asked 
so prettily, " Let me do that?" it required n 
more decided man than tlie old clergyman 
to refuse her. And then she was so lalka- 
tive; her tongue was scarcely silent for a 
moment from morning till night, and this 
amused t.hc Pastor. It was all go new to 
him, he who had always been used to the 
silent Agnes. MathHjBB observed the 
ascendancy she was gaining over him, and 
resolved to profit by it and do as she liked. 
Hitherto she had condescended to walk 
when she went, out, but suddenly she dis¬ 
covered that this was too much for her weak 
health, aud that she must take more care ol 
herself. In consequence of this the carriage 
must always be at her disposal. Halvah 
snored so loudly iu the room under hers 
that, it, awoke her; so old II ALVAR was 
obliged logo and sleep in the hay-loft. Theu 
she was so nervous, poor little thing 1 that 
when Marie split the wood, and sang in 
the morning, she was quite iu a tremble. So 
Marie was tokl to do it in the evening at 
ten o’clock, or else go into the wood-house. 
Matiiilde was not to be kept out of the 
kitchen, either; she must help Agnes with 
the cookiug 1 These country servants could 
not, of course, do anything properly, and 
this they were made to understand more 
than once. Marie wuh so angry at this 
“town mamscll,’ as she called her, and 
would willingly, at any moment, have 
thrown tlie ladle after her. The table in 
the dining-room at once resumed its place 
in the middle of the room, and all I he line 
nicknacks bad come out again, The covers 
were taken off the chairs, and all possible 
EDUCATIONAL NOTES, 
Stylo and Thought. 
Algernon Swinburne saysIt is not 
depth of thought which makes obscure to 
others tlie work of a thinker; real aud offen¬ 
sive obscurity comes merely of inadequate 
thought embodied in inadequate language. 
What is clearly comprehended or conceived, 
what is duly wrought and thought, out, must 
I,n<li«a' Art Association. 
The second Reception of this Association 
was held in their Gallery in Clinton Hall, in 
this city, Jan. 28tli. Notwithstanding the 
streets were blockaded by snow drifts, and 
snow was continuing to fall, there was a 
large assemblage, of distinguished men and 
women. Among the 
find for itself and seize upon the clearest and 
fullest expression. That grave and deep 
matter should be treated with the fluency 
and facility proper to light and slight things 
uo fool i3 foolish enough to desire; but we 
may at least demand that whatever of mes¬ 
sage a speaker may have for us be delivered 
without impediment of speech. A style 
