MRS. B.
Precisely: in this state it is called quick-lime, and it is so caustic, that it is capable of decomposing the dead bodies of animals very rapidly, without their undergoing the process of putrefaction.—I have here some quick lime, which is kept carefully corked up in a bottle to prevent the access of air; for were it at all exposed to the atmosphere, it would absorb both moisture and carbonic acid gas from it, and be soon slaked. Here is also some lime-stone—we shall pour a little water on each, and observe the effects that result from it.
CAROLINE.
How the quick-lime hisses! It is become excessively hot!—It swells, and now it bursts and crumbles to powder, while the water appears to produce no kind of alteration on the lime-stone.
MRS. B.
Because the lime-stone is already saturated with water, whilst the quick-lime, which has been deprived of it in the kiln, combines with it with very great avidity, and produces this prodigious disengagement of heat, the cause of which I formerly explained to you; do you recollect it?
EMILY.
Yes; you said that the heat did not proceed from the lime, but from the water which was solidified, and thus parted with its heat of liquidity.
MRS. B.
Very well. If we continue to add successive quantities of water to the lime after being slaked and crumbled as you see, it will then gradually be diffused in the water, till it will at length be dissolved in it, and entirely disappear; but for this purpose it requires no less than 700 times its weight of water. This solution is called lime-water.