A NAVAL BATTLE FOR CLEVER BOYS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume X, Issue 1, 7 January 1893, Page 23

A NAVAL BATTLE FOR CLEVER BOYS.

The amusing experiment of a small naval battle can be made with white chalk and the ordinary table vinegar. Model, say, a dozen chunks of chalk to the resemblance of ships, planing the bottoms evenly, and using matches for masts, smoke-stacks, and turrets. The rival forces you can distinguish by colouring the enemy’s ships with black ink, leaving your own white. Having placed them in a pan or plate close to an imaginary dividing line, pour a good quantity of vinegar between the chalk sticks. Instantly you will hear an audible seething, like the hissing of shells in actual warfare, while ships as if puffing up steam will begin to move forward in slow revolutions, leaving behind them streaks of foam such as are observed in the wake of moving vessels. When meeting at the dividing line, they will have attained quite a respectable speed, bumping and cuffing together in the endeavour to push one another furthest from the dividing line. The engagement often proves an exciting one. Of course, the side has won which has the larger number of ships nearest the centre after the affray. The chemical solution of this seeming mystery is quite simple. Chalk being largely carbon, combines with the acid of the vinegar in carbonic acid—the same gases that cause the effervescence of most mineral waters. The gases rise to the surface of the vinegar in small bubbles of sufficient strength to cause the current which turns the chalk. Since the patriotic youth will want to see New Zealand boats win, it will be well for him to remember that the best quality of chalk contains the largest proportion of carbon. It will also prove of advantage to plane the chalk carefully, so as to permit it to glide easily.