ILLUSION OF THE TASTE.
If the nose be held tightly while you are eating cinnamon you will perceive scarcely any difference between its flavour and that of a deal shaving.
THE GENERAL BLEACHER.
Provide some strong chloride of lime, soak in it strips of printed cotton; take them out, dry them, and you will find them very white, but very rotten, slitting and dropping into holes upon the slightest touch.
The dazzling whiteness of paper is caused by bleaching it with chloride of lime. Thus, if you write on printing paper with common ink, it will fade, because the chloride will destroy the colouring matter of writing ink. It will not, however, change printing ink, as that owes its blackness to charcoal, which is a singularly permanent substance. Blot over a printed page with common writing ink, wash it with chloride of lime, when the blots will disappear, and leave the printing unchanged.
INFLUENCE OF COLOURED GLASS ON BULBOUS ROOTS.
Put a bulb, as a hyacinth, narcissus, &c., into a white glass, and another into a purple glass: the latter will grow faster than the former; and, if a pinch of salt, or a piece of nitre, be put into the water whenever it is changed, the brightness of the colour of the flower will be considerably heightened.
THE SPINNING-TOP “ASLEEP.”
Spin a top, and it will for some time stand “asleep,” as it is called in the parlance of the play-ground. The cause is thus explained by Dr. Arnot, in his valuable Elements of Physics: “While the top is perfectly upright, its point being directly under its centre, supports it steadily, and although turning so rapidly, has no tendency to move from the place; but, if the top incline at all, the side of the peg, instead of the very point, comes in contact with the floor, and the peg then becomes a little wheel or roller, advancing quickly, and, with its touching edge, describing a curve somewhat as a skater does, until it becomes directly under the body of the top, as before. It thus appears that the very fact of the top inclining causes the point to shift its place, so that it cannot rest until it come again directly under the centre of the top.”