Hold a red rose over the blue flame of a common match, and the color will be discharged wherever the fume touches the leaves of the flower, so as to render it beautifully variegated, or entirely white. If it be then dipped into water, the redness, after a time, will be restored.
LIGHT CHANGING WHITE INTO BLACK.
Write upon linen with permanent ink (which is a strong solution of nitrate of silver), and the characters will be scarcely visible; remove the linen into a dark room, and they will not change; but expose them to a strong light, and they will be of an indelible black.
THE VISIBLY GROWING ACORN.
Cut a circular piece of card to fit the top of a hyacinth-glass, so as to rest upon the ledge, and exclude the air. Pierce a hole through the center of the card, and pass through it a strong thread, having a small piece of wood tied to one end, which, resting transversely on the card, prevents its being drawn through. To the other end of the thread attach an acorn; and having half filled the glass with water, suspend the acorn at a short distance from the surface.
The glass must be kept in a warm room; and, in a few days, the steam which has generated in the glass will hang from the acorn in a large drop. Shortly afterwards the acorn will burst, the root will protrude and thrust itself into the water; and in a few days more a stem will shoot out at the other end, and rising upwards, will press against the card, in which an orifice must be made to allow it to pass through. From this stem, small leaves will soon be observed to sprout; and in the course of a few weeks you will have a handsome oak plant, several inches in height.
COLORED FLAMES.
A variety of rays of light are exhibited by colored flames, which are not to be seen in white light. Thus, pure hydrogen gas will burn with a blue flame, in which many of the rays of light are wanting. The flame of an oil lamp contains most of the rays which are wanting in the sunlight. Alcohol, mixed with water, when heated or burned, affords a flame with no other rays but yellow. The following salts, if finely powdered, and introduced into the exterior flame of a candle, or into the wick of a spirit lamp, will communicate to the flame their peculiar colors:
| Muriate of Soda (common salt) | Yellow. |
| Muriate of Potash | Pale violet. |
| Muriate of Lime | Brick red. |
| Muriate of Strontia | Bright crimson. |
| Muriate of Lithia | Red. |
| Muriate of Baryta | Pale apple-green. |
| Muriate of Copper | Bluish green. |
| Borax | Green. |