CHAPTER XXXVIII.—ARTIFICIAL WOOD: HOW TO MAKE IT AND WHAT TO MAKE OF IT.
By the late Dr. Scoffern.

You will admit, I think, that if instead of fashioning wood by tools it were possible to make the wood grow into the shape desired, it would not only be curious, but under certain circumstances useful. Suppose, for instance, I wished to have a boat; it would not only be curious, but in some cases useful, if I could make the boat grow under my eyes by almost imperceptible additions, instead of fashioning it, as now, from planks. This is just what I am going to show you how to do, and very pretty work you will find it in long evenings.

You must begin by making a fluid called cupro-ammonium (you cannot buy it), which has the singular property of dissolving woody matter just as completely as water dissolves gum. You make this cupro-ammonium thus: Go to a wholesale druggist, or a drysalter, and purchase a Winchester quart bottle full of the very strongest solution of ammonia. This is known commercially as ‘eighty-eighty’ ammonia, by which name you are to inquire for it. Were you to purchase less than the measure of a Winchester quart it would cost you a much higher proportionate price, because, being very irritating to the nose and eyes, the vendor will take good care to charge you for all the sneezes and eye-blinkings he has to encounter in measuring out your required quantity.

Next you will require an empty Winchester quart stoppered bottle, or a bottle of equal capacity. Being thus provided, you will pour just one half of the contents of the full bottle into the empty bottle; the reason for doing which will presently be seen.

Get now some copper wire—it matters not what size—and having got it, cut into such lengths that being thrust into one of your half-full Winchester quart bottles it shall lie partly immersed in the ammonia, and partly exposed to air, like this:—

You will observe that the [sketch] represents not one length of copper wire, but many, the fact being that the object of using copper at all is that it may be dissolved by the ammonia; and it stands to reason that in proportion as the copper is more so will the necessary strength of solution be arrived at more quickly. Contact of air being necessary to effect the solution affords the reason for your dividing the original ammonia into halves.

So your bundle of copper wire being placed in the half-full bottle as described, there let it remain and steep, but you must take care to remove the stopper of your bottle from time to time—say once a day, at least—shaking the contained fluid well about, so as to promote air contact. An interesting change will be seen to take place. The ammonia solution, originally colourless as water, grows blue and bluer still, until so very blue that you cannot see through it. To this blue solution the name of cupro-ammonia has been applied. It has the remarkable property of dissolving wood, as we shall presently discover in our workings.

Before going further I must point out to you that this cupro-ammonium has a very strong smell; not a disagreeable smell, far from it; the smell of hartshorn, in point of fact. Not an unhealthy smell, but one may easily have too much of it. To be working amidst sneezing and eyes full of water is not agreeable, so I will tell you betimes how, in your small workings, you may avoid this inconvenience. The smell depends on a colourless gas ammonia, which is a light gas and very tractable. If you sit in a draught and on the windward side whilst working, and in the open air, the ammonia is blown away from you and you smell nothing. If you work in a room and before a chimney, up which there is a draught, then again you smell nothing, because all the ammonia evolved goes up the chimney. These points being remembered, no trouble will be experienced in doing such small work as I shall teach you; but before working with cupro-ammonia could be conducted on a large manufacturing scale, as it now is conducted, special means had to be devised for disposing of the ammoniacal atmosphere.

Good, so far! And now about the tools. The hand, with its four fingers and a thumb, is so excellent a tool for an infinity of purposes, that certain thoughtless people would seem to be under the impression that whatever new thing they may have to do can be done without tools altogether. This is a mistake; tools you will want, but they are of the simplest description.