Laughing Gas.
The above fanciful appellation has been given to nitrous oxide, from the very agreeable sensations excited by inhaling it. In its pure state it destroys animal life, but loses this noxious quality when inhaled, because it becomes blended with the atmospheric air which it meets in the lungs. This gas is made by putting three or four drams of nitrate of ammonia in crystals into a small glass retort, which being held over a spirit lamp, the crystals will melt, and the gas be evolved.
Having thus produced the gas, it is to be passed into a large bladder having a stop-cock; and when you are desirous of exhibiting its effects you cause the person who wishes to experience them to first exhale the atmospheric air from the lungs, and then quickly placing the cock in his mouth you turn it, and bid him inhale the gas. Immediately a sense of extraordinary cheerfulness, fanciful flights of imagination, an uncontrollable propensity to laughter, and a consciousness of being capable of great muscular exertion, supervene. It does not operate in exactly the same manner on all persons; but in most cases the sensations are agreeable, and have this important difference from those produced by wine or spirituous liquors, that they are not succeeded by any depression of mind.
Magic Vapor.
Provide a glass tube about three feet long and half an inch in diameter; nearly fill it with water, upon the surface of which pour a little colored ether; then close the open end of the tube carefully with the palm of the hand, invert it in a basin of water, and rest the tube against the wall. The ether will rise through the water to the upper end of the tube; pour a little hot water over the tube, and it will soon cause the ether to boil within, and its vapor may thus be made to drive nearly all of the water out of the tube into the basin. If, however, you then cool the tube by pouring cold water over it, the vaporized ether will again become a liquid, and float upon the water as before.
Gas from the Union of Metals.
Nearly fill a wine glass with diluted sulphuric acid, and place in it a wire of silver and another of zinc, taking care that they do not touch each other, when the zinc will be changed by the acid, but the silver will remain inert. But cause the upper ends of the wires to touch each other, and a stream of gas will issue from them.