How to Do Chemical Tricks

"How to Do Chemical Tricks" by A.Anderson is a book containing more than one hundred shocking and knowledgeable tricks with chemicals. Excerpt: «Combustion. It is necessary to distinguish between burning and the mere appearance of it. A gas flame is gas in a state of combustion, whereas the electric light is no example of it, although the wire within the glassen cylinder is red hot, and to all appearance burning. Combustion generally takes place through the strong affinity of some element, such as carbon in a substance for the oxygen in the atmosphere. In coal gas, for instance, the carbon contained in it unites with the oxygen in the air to form a colorless substance called carbonic acid gas. The latter is unable to support life, and may be called, therefore, poisonous. It is the presence of this gas which makes it unhealthy to burn many jets without proper ventilation.»