Page:On the various forces of nature and their relations to each other.djvu/100

96, and we will proceed to examine what is the character of this gas. First of all, you remember, I told you that it does not burn, but that it affects the burning of other bodies. I will just set fire to the point of this little bit of wood, and then plunge it into the jar of oxygen, and you will see what this gas does in increasing the brilliancy of the combustion. It does not burn—it does not take fire as the hydrogen would—but how vividly the combustion of the match goes on. Again, if I were to take this wax taper and light it, and turn it upside down in the air, it would in all probability put itself out, owing to the wax running down into the wick. [The Lecturer here turned the lighted taper upside down, when in a few seconds it went out.] Now, that will not happen in oxygen gas; you will see how differently it acts (fig. 26). [The taper was again lighted, turned upside down, and then introduced into a jar of oxygen.] Look at that! see how the very wax itself burns, and falls down in a dazzling stream of fire, so powerfully does the oxygen support combustion. Again, here is another experiment which will serve to