To Boil Water Without Fire.
Half fill a common oil-flask with water, and boil it for a few minutes over the flame of a spirit-lamp. While boiling, cork up the mouth of the flask as quickly as you can, and tie a bit of wet bladder over the cork, so as to exclude the air perfectly. The flask being now removed from the lamp, the boiling ceases. Pour some cold water upon the upper portion of the flask, and the ebullition recommences! Apply hot water, and it stops! And thus you may go on as long as you please.
to Convert a Liquid into a Solid.
Dissolve about half a pound of sulphate of soda in a pint of boiling water, and after it has stood a few minutes to settle, pour it off into a clean glass vessel. Pour a little sweet oil upon the surface, and put it to stand where it can get cold, and where no one will touch it. When cold, put in a stick, and the fluid, previously clear, will at once become opaque, and begin to crystallize, until at length there is a solid crystalline mass.
Ice on Fire.
Make a hole in a block of ice with a hot poker. Pour out the water, and fill up the cavity with camphorated spirits of wine. Then ignite the spirit with a match, and the lump of ice will seem to be in flames.
Experiments Requiring Chemical Solutions.
To prepare these solutions, purchase of a druggist a small quantity of the solid crystals of the substance needed for the experiment you wish to try. Dissolve the crystals in clear pure water, and keep the solution in a little bottle, labeled with the name. It is seldom that the solutions need be strong. When the crystal is a colored one, enough should be used to give the water a light tint, blue, yellow, or what it may be. None of these solutions will do any harm to the hands, unless there is a cut or a wound of any kind upon the skin. It is well also, not to let a drop of any of them fall upon the clothes, or upon furniture, for some of them will stain. And none of them should ever be tasted, or touched by the lips or tongue, many of them being acrid and even poisonous.
With the acids still greater care is needed, the stronger acids being corrosive and poisonous. The greater portion of these substances must likewise not be smelled, as the fumes or vapors would affect the nostrils painfully.
For the proper performance of these experiments with solutions, etc.,—at all events for the neatest and most elegant performance of them,—there should be obtained from the chemist's shop about a dozen test-tubes. These are little glass vessels, manufactured on purpose, and very cheap. Do not take glasses that may afterward be used for drinking or household purposes. Be careful to have every one of your experiment glasses perfectly clean.