I must, before we part, introduce to your acquaintance the newly-discovered substance IODINE, which you may recollect we placed next to oxygen and chlorine in our table of simple bodies.
CAROLINE.
Is this also a body capable of maintaining combustion like oxygen and chlorine?
MRS. B.
It is; and although it does not so generally disengage light and heat from inflammable bodies, as oxygen and chlorine do, yet it is capable of combining with most of them; and sometimes, as in the instance of potassium and phosphorus, the combination is attended with an actual appearance of light and heat.
CAROLINE.
But what sort of a substance is iodine: what is its form, and colour?
MRS. B.
It is a very singular body, in many respects. At the ordinary temperature of the atmosphere, it commonly appears in the form of blueish black crystalline scales, such as you see in this tube.
CAROLINE.