Fig. 247.
Instrument for the combustion of steel.
The stand has a disc of soft iron fixed upon an axis, which revolves on two anti-friction wheels of brass. The disc, by means of a belt worked over a wheel immediately below it, is made to perform 5000 revolutions per minute. If the hardest file is pressed against the edge of the revolving disc, the velocity of the latter produces sufficient heat by the great friction to melt that portion of the file which is brought in contact with it, whilst some particles of the file are torn away with violence, and being projected into the air, burn with that beautiful effect so peculiar to steel. If the experiment is performed in a darkened room, the periphery of the revolving disc will be observed to have attained a luminous red heat. Thirty years ago every house was provided with a "tinder-box" and matches to "strike a light." Since the advent of prometheans and lucifers, the flint and steel, the tinder, and the matches dipped in sulphur, have all disappeared, and now the box might be deposited in any antiquarian museum under the portrait of Guy Fawkes, and labelled, "an instrument for procuring a light, extensively used in the early part of the nineteenth century." (Fig. 248.)
Fig. 248.
c. The steel. b. The flint. e. The tinder. d. The matches of the old-fashioned tinder-box, a.
The rubbing of a piece of wood (hardened by fire, and cut to a point) against another and softer kind, has been used from time immemorial by savage nations to evoke heat and light; the wood is revolved in the fashion of a drill with unerring dexterity by the hands of the savage, and being surrounded with light chips, and gently aided by the breath, the latent fire is by great and incessant labour at last procured. How favourably the modern lucifers compare with these laborious efforts of barbarous tribes! a child may now procure a light with a chemically prepared metal, and great merit is due to that person who first devised a method of mixing together phosphorus and chlorate of potash and so adjusted these dangerous materials that they are as safe as the "old tinder-box," and have now become one of our domestic necessaries. Ignition, or the increase of heat in a solid body, is another source of light, and is well illustrated in the production of illuminating power from the combustion of tallow, oil, wax, camphine or coal gas. The term ignition is derived from the Latin (ignis, fire), and is quite distinct, and has a totally different meaning from that of combustion. If a glass jar is filled with carbonic acid gas, and a little tray placed in it containing some gun cotton, it will be found impossible to fire the latter with a lighted taper, i.e. by combustion (comburo, to burn), because the gas extinguishes flame which is dependent on a supply of oxygen; whereas if a copper or other metallic wire is made red hot or ignited, the carbonic acid has no effect upon the heat, and the red hot wire being passed through the gas, the gun cotton is immediately fired.
Flame consists of three parts—viz., of an outer film, which comes directly in contact with the air, and has little or no luminosity; also of a second film, where carbon is deposited, and, first by ignition, and finally by combustion, produces the light; and thirdly, of an interior space containing unburnt gas, which is, as it were, waiting its turn to reach the external air, and to be consumed in the ordinary manner. (Fig. 249.)
