Page:On the various forces of nature and their relations to each other.djvu/62

58 but that is of no consequence), and if you look at it, it will first of all darken—but see, how it is becoming yellow. I have now made it all yellow, and what is more, it will remain so; but if I take any hard substance, and rub the yellow part with it, it will immediately go back again to the red condition. [Exhibiting the experiment.] There it is. You see the red is not put back, but brought back by the change in the substance. Now [warming it over the spirit lamp] here it is becoming yellow again, and that is all because its attraction of cohesion is changed. And what will you say to me when I tell you that this piece of common charcoal is just the same thing, only differently calesced, as the diamonds which you wear? (I have put a specimen outside of a piece of straw which was charred in a particular way—it is just like black lead.) Now, this charred straw, this charcoal, and these diamonds, are all of them the same substance, changed but in their properties as respects the force of cohesion.

Here is a piece of glass [producing a piece of plate-glass about two inches square]—(I shall