SCIENCE FOE THE PEOPLE.

Otago Witness, Issue 1241, 11 September 1875, Page 3

SCIENCE FOE THE PEOPLE.

CARBON.

This evening I propose to take another substance, but one not less • important and- interesting than the former ones. This substance also is an elementary body the name of which we have often had to mention, namely, earhon or charcoal. Now . this 1 carbon or coal is a substance of such great importance that we canuot at first realize its full value, for neither vegetable nor animal life could exist if we were to cut off thia one substance, carbon ; in other words, if carbon had not existed, the animals and vegetables as they now exist could not have been formed, because all these things necessarily contain carbon. The first instance I will give you of the existence of charcoal in a vegetable shall be this beautiful white lump sugar, the product of the sugar cane refined. I shall be able to show you that sugar contains carbon by taking away the sugar the water which it contains, and then we have the carbon left. I first; add some hot water to the sugar to make a syrup, in order that the sulphuric acid may be able to act upon the sugar more expeditiously, and when the sugar is all dissolved, I will pour upon it some sulphuric acid when we shall see the carbon. All our beautiful white sugar is now trsnformed into this boiling black substance. [This illusfration, and all the subsequent ones, elicited the applause of the audience.] This shows you distinctly that a vegetable body such as white sugar contains carbon. Flesh meat also contains carbon. We know that when a piece of meat is over-roasted and burnt the black carbon comes out ; and if I had done this with meat or blood, I should have produced the same black carbon. -Prof, lloscoe's Lectures to Working Men.