“The application of heat in this manner must be short and the operation altogether, to be successful, must be a quick one. If the contents of the bottle are fluid, it should be so inclined that they must not become heated; if they are volatile this method should be tried very carefully, lest the vapour formed within should burst the bottle.
“It is often advantageous to put a little olive oil round the edge of the stopper at its insertion, allowing it to soak in for a day or two. If this be done before the heat be applied, it frequently penetrates by increased facility; by oil, heat, and tapping very obstinate stoppers may be removed.
“When a stopper has been fixed by crystallisation from solution, water will sometimes set it free, and it is more efficacious in such cases
than oil, because it dissolves the cement. When the cementing matter is a metallic oxide or sub-salt, a little muriatic acid may be useful if there be no objection to its application arising from the nature of the substance within.”[198]
[198] Faraday.
A writes in ‘New Remedies’ suggests that, in attempting to extricate the fixed stopper by means of knocking with a piece of wood, the motion given to it when putting it in should be reversed, that is, the stopper should be knocked from right to left.
STORM-GLASS. A philosophical toy, consisting of a thin glass tube about 12 inches long and 3⁄4 inch in diameter, about three fourths filled with the following liquid, and covered with a brass car having an almost capillary hole through it, or else tied over with bladder.
The solution. Take of camphor, 2 dr.; nitre 11⁄2 dr.; sal ammoniac, 1 dr.; proof spirit 21⁄4 fl. oz.; dissolve, and place it in the tube above referred to. Used to foretell changes of the weather.
STOVES. In England the open grate or fireplace, because of its cheerful appearance and the sense of comfort it suggests when filled with glowing coal, is the favorite and general receptacle for the fuel with which we warm our apartments. The cozy appearance, however, of our old-fashioned English grate, constitutes its chief, if not its only merit; for it not only fails in uniformly warming and effectively ventilating our apartments, but it more or less sets into circulation a number of draughts of cold air, and besides occasionally filling our rooms with smoke and spoiling our furniture by the deposition of soot and dust, wastes our fuel, by allowing it to escape unconsumed in the shape of smoke, and thus pollutes the atmosphere of our cities and towns.
In France, Germany, Belgium, Russia, and other European countries, as well as in America and Canada, the stove or closed fireplace is used. The domestic stove of these countries is made either of sheet or cast-iron, or fire-clay. The iron stoves, being mostly composed of thin plates, soon absorb and radiate the heat; and although this property enables them to rapidly warm an apartment, it has the disadvantage, if the stove becomes red-hot, of allowing the escape through the heated metal into the surrounding air of the carbonic acid generated in the stove; and furthermore, in its immediate vicinity converts a portion of it into carbonic oxide. Such stoves must necessarily be unsafe unless used in well-ventilated apartments.[199] Another effect of the over heating of the stove is to desiccate or parch the air, and to render it irritating when breathed. The fire-clay stoves are free from these drawbacks, and continue to radiate from their surfaces a large amount of heat, even