Conversations on Chemistry Part 49

Certainly; the combustion of oil is just the same as that of a candle; if tallow, it is only oil in a concrete state; if wax, or spermaceti, its chief chemical ingredients are still hydrogen and carbon.

EMILY.

I wonder, then, there should be so great a difference between tallow and wax?

MRS. B.

I must again repeat, that the same substances, in different proportions, produce results that have sometimes scarcely any resemblance to each other. But this is rather a general remark that I wish to impress upon your minds, than one which is applicable to the present case; for tallow and wax are far from being very dissimilar; the chief difference consists in the wax being a purer compound of carbon and hydrogen than the tallow, which retains more of the gross particles of animal matter.

The combustion of a candle, and that of a lamp, both produce water and carbonic acid gas. Can you tell me how these are formed?

EMILY.

Let me reflect . . . . Both the candle and lamp burn by means of fixed oil--this is decomposed as the combustion goes on; and the const.i.tuent parts of the oil being thus separated, the carbon unites to a portion of oxygen from the atmosphere to form carbonic acid gas, whilst the hydrogen combines with another portion of oxygen, and forms with it water. --The products, therefore, of the combustion of oils are water and carbonic acid gas.

CAROLINE.

But we see neither water nor carbonic acid produced by the combustion of a candle.

MRS. B.

The carbonic acid gas, you know, is invisible, and the water being in a state of vapour, is so likewise. Emily is perfectly correct in her explanation, and I am very much pleased with it.

All the vegetable acids consist of various proportions of carbon and hydrogen, acidified by oxygen. Gums, sugar, and starch, are likewise composed of these ingredients; but, as the oxygen which they contain is not sufficient to convert them into acids, they are cla.s.sed with the oxyds, and called vegetable oxyds.

CAROLINE.

I am very much delighted with all these new ideas; but, at the same time, I cannot help being apprehensive that I may forget many of them.

MRS. B.

I would advise you to take notes, or, what would answer better still, to write down, after every lesson, as much of it as you can recollect. And, in order to give you a little a.s.sistance, I shall lend you the heads or index, which I occasionally consult for the sake of preserving some method and arrangement in these conversations. Unless you follow some such plan, you cannot expect to retain nearly all that you learn, how great soever be the impression it may make on you at first.

EMILY.

I will certainly follow your advice. --Hitherto I have found that I recollected pretty well what you have taught us; but the history of carbon is a more extensive subject than any of the simple bodies we have yet examined.

MRS. B.

I have little more to say on carbon at present; but hereafter you will see that it performs a considerable part in most chemical operations.

CAROLINE.

That is, I suppose, owing to its entering into the composition of so great a variety of substances?

MRS. B.

Certainly; it is the basis, you have seen, of all vegetable matter; and you will find that it is very essential to the process of animalization.

But in the mineral kingdom also, particularly in its form of carbonic acid, we shall often discover it combined with a great variety of substances.

In chemical operations, carbon is particularly useful, from its very great attraction for oxygen, as it will absorb this substance from many oxygenated or burnt bodies, and thus deoxygenate, or _unburn_ them, and restore them to their original combustible state.

CAROLINE.

I do not understand how a body can be _unburnt_, and restored to its original state. This piece of tinder, for instance, that has been burnt, if by any means the oxygen were extracted from it, would not be restored to its former state of linen; for its texture is destroyed by burning, and that must be the case with all organized or manufactured substances, as you observed in a former conversation.

MRS. B.

A compound body is decomposed by combustion in a way which generally precludes the possibility of restoring it to its former state; the oxygen, for instance, does not become fixed in the tinder, but it combines with its volatile parts, and flies off in the shape of gas, or watery vapour. You see, therefore, how vain it would be to attempt the recomposition of such bodies. But, with regard to simple bodies, or at least bodies whose component parts are not disturbed by the process of oxygenation or deoxygenation, it is often possible to restore them, after combustion, to their original state. --The metals, for instance, undergo no other alteration by combustion than a combination with oxygen; therefore, when the oxygen is taken from them, they return to their pure metallic state. But I shall say nothing further of this at present, as the metals will furnish ample subject for another morning; and they are the cla.s.s of simple bodies that come next under consideration.

CONVERSATION X.

ON METALS.

MRS. B.

The METALS, which we are now to examine, are bodies of a very different nature from those which we have hitherto considered. They do not, like the bases of gases, elude the immediate observation of our senses; for they are the most brilliant, the most ponderous, and the most palpable substances in nature.

CAROLINE.

I doubt, however, whether the metals will appear to us so interesting, and give us so much entertainment as those mysterious elements which conceal themselves from our view. Besides, they cannot afford so much novelty; they are bodies with which we are already so well acquainted.

MRS. B.

You are not aware, my dear, of the interesting discoveries which were a few years ago made by Sir H. Davy respecting this cla.s.s of bodies. By the aid of the Voltaic battery, he has obtained from a variety of substances, metals before unknown, the properties of which are equally new and curious. We shall begin, however, by noticing those metals with which you profess to be so well acquainted. But the acquaintance, you will soon perceive, is but very superficial; and I trust that you will find both novelty and entertainment in considering the metals in a chemical point of view. To treat of this subject fully, would require a whole course of lectures; for metals form of themselves a most important branch of practical chemistry. We must, therefore, confine ourselves to a general view of them. These bodies are seldom found naturally in their metallic form: they are generally more or less oxygenated or combined with sulphur, earths, or acids, and are often blended with each other.

They are found buried in the bowels of the earth in most parts of the world, but chiefly in mountainous districts, where the surface of the globe has suffered from the earthquakes, volcanos, and other convulsions of nature. They are spread in strata or beds, called veins, and these veins are composed of a certain quant.i.ty of metal, combined with various earthy substances, with which they form minerals of different nature and appearance, which are called _ores_.

CAROLINE.

I now feel quite at home, for my father has a lead-mine in Yorks.h.i.+re, and I have heard a great deal about veins of ore, and of the _roasting_ and _smelting_ of the lead; but, I confess, that I do not understand in what these operations consist.

MRS. B.

Roasting is the process by which the volatile parts of the ore are evaporated; smelting, that by which the pure metal is afterwards separated from the earthy remains of the ore. This is done by throwing the whole into a furnace, and mixing with it certain substances that will combine with the earthy parts and other foreign ingredients of the ore; the metal being the heaviest, falls to the bottom, and runs out by proper openings in its pure metallic state.

EMILY.

You told us in a preceding lesson that metals had a great affinity for oxygen. Do they not, therefore, combine with oxygen, when strongly heated in the furnace, and run out in the state of oxyds?

MRS. B.

No; for the scoriae, or oxyd, which soon forms on the surface of the fused metal, when it is oxydable, prevents the air from having any further influence on the ma.s.s; so that neither combustion nor oxygenation can take place.

CAROLINE.

Are all the metals equally combustible?