H——. "It bubbles, and makes a sort of noise."
B——. "It turns into steam or vapour, I believe."
Father. "All at once?"
B——. "No: but what is at the top, first."
Father. "Now you see the reason why water can't be made hotter than boiling hot: for if a certain degree of heat be applied to it, it changes into the form of vapour, and flies off. When I was a little boy, I was once near having a dreadful accident. I had not been taught the nature of water, and steam, and heat, and evaporation; and I wanted to fill a wet hollow stick with melted lead. The moment I poured the lead into the stick, the water in the wood turned into vapour suddenly, and the lead was thrown up with great violence to the ceiling: my face narrowly escaped. So you see people should know what they are about before they meddle with things.—But now as to the chocolate."
No one seemed to have any thing to say about the chocolate.
Father. "Water, you know, boils with a certain degree of heat. Will oil, do you think, boil with the same heat?"
C——. "I don't understand."
Father. "In the same degree of heat (you must learn to accustom yourself to those words, though they seem difficult to you)—In the same heat, do you think water or oil would boil the soonest?"