Page:The chemical history of a candle.djvu/125

Rh The sulphur is now burning very quietly in the oxygen; but you cannot for a moment mistake the very high and increased action which takes place when it is so burnt, instead of being burnt merely in common air.

I am now about to shew you the combustion of another substance— phosphorus. I can do it better for you here than you can do it at home. This is a very combustible substance; and if it be so combustible in air, what might you expect it would be in oxygen? I am about to shew it to you not in its fullest intensity, for if I did so we should almost blow the apparatus up— I may even now crack the jar, though I do not want to break things carelessly. You see how it burns in the air. But what a glorious light it gives out when I introduce it into oxygen! [Introducing the lighted phosphorus into the jar of oxygen.] There you see the solid particles going off which cause that combustion to be so brilliantly luminous.

Thus far we have tested this power of oxygen, and the high combustion it produces by means of other substances. We must now,