the young philosopher's mamma.

"What should you say now," continued Harry, "if I told you that the
smoke that comes out of a candle is the very thing that makes a candle
light? Yes; a candle shines by consuming its own smoke. The smoke of
a candle is a cloud of small dust, and the little grains of the dust
are bits of charcoal, or carbon, as chemists call it. They are made in
the flame, and burnt in the flame, and, while burning, make the flame
bright. They are burnt the moment they are made; but the flame goes on
making more of them as fast as it burns them: and that is how it keeps
bright. The place they are made in, is in the ease of flame itself,
where the strong heat is. The great heat separates them from the gas
which conies from the melted wax, and, as soon as they touch the air
on the outside of the thin case of flame, they burn."

"Can you tell how it is that the little bits of carbon came the
brightness of the flame?" asked Mr. Wilkinson.

"Because they are pieces of solid matter," answered Harry. "To make
a flame shine, there must always be some solid--or at least
liquid-matter in it."

"Very good." said Mr. Bagges,--"solid stuff necessary to brightness."

"Some gases and other things," resumed Harry, "that burn with a
flame you can hardly see, burn splendidly when something solid is
put into them. Oxygen and hydrogen--tell me if I use too hard words,
uncle--oxygen and hydrogen gases, if mixed together and blown through
a pipe, burn with plenty of heat but with very little light. But if
their flame is blown upon a piece of quick-lime, it gets so bright