Experimental glass blowing for boys

by Carleton John Lynde

MAGICAL EXPERIMENTS

Boys, you can perform many magic experiments with apparatus made out of the glass tubes, rubber stoppers, and rubber unions supplied with “Experimental Glass Blowing.” We outline a number in the following pages. You can invent many more for yourselves.

MAGIC WITH FLAMES

Experiment 70. Magic lighting.

Light your alcohol lamp, blow it out, and bring a lighted match down toward the wick from above (Fig. 93). Does the lamp light in a most magical manner before the match touches the wick?

FIG. 93
MAGIC

Repeat this with a kerosene lamp and with a candle. Do they light in the same magical manner?

The “why” of it

When the lamp is lighted, the alcohol or kerosene turns to a gas, and it is the gas which burns; when the candle is lighted, the wax turns to an oil, the oil turns to a gas, and it is the gas which burns.