Part 4

Three different colours may be produced from the same infusion, merely by the addition of three colourless fluids. Slice a little red cabbage, pour boiling water upon it, and when cold, decant the clear infusion, which divide into three wine-glasses: to one, add a small quantity of solution of alum in water; to the second, a little solution of potash in water; and to the third, a few drops of muriatic acid. The liquor in the first glass will assume a purple colour, the second, a bright green, and the third a rich crimson.

Put a dram of powdered nitrate of cobalt into a phial containing an ounce of the solution of caustic potass; cork the phial, and the liquid will assume a blue colour, next a lilac, afterwards a peach colour, and lastly a light red.

TO CHANGE A BLUE LIQUID TO WHITE.

Dissolve a small lump of indigo in sulphuric acid, by the aid of moderate heat, and you will obtain an intense blue colour: add a drop of this to half a pint of water, so as to dilute the blue; then pour some of it into strong chloride of lime, and the blue will be bleached with almost magical velocity.

VERITABLE “BLACK” TEA.

Make a cup of strong green tea; dissolve a little green copperas in water, which add to the tea, and its colour will be black.

RESTORATION OF COLOUR BY WATER.

Water being a colourless fluid, ought, one would imagine, when mixed with other substances of no decided colour, to produce a colourless compound. Nevertheless, it is to water only that blue vitriol, or sulphate of copper, owes its vivid blueness; as will be plainly evinced by the following simple experiment. Heat a few crystals of the vitriol in a fire shovel, pulverize them, and the powder will be of a dull and dirty white appearance. Pour a little water upon this, when a slight hissing noise will be heard, and at the same moment, the blue colour will instantly re-appear.

Under the microscope, the beauty of this experiment will be increased, for the instant that a drop of water is placed in contact with the vitriol, the powder may be seen to shoot into blue prisms. If a crystal of prussiate of potash be similarly heated, its yellow colour will vanish, but re-appear on being dropped into water.

THE MAGIC WRITING.

Dissolve a small portion of green-copperas in water, and soak in it sheets of writing paper, so as to allow them to be taken out whole, and then dried; then, cover the paper with very finely powdered galls, and write on it with a pen dipped in water; when dry, brush off the galls, and the writing will appear.

TWO LIQUIDS MAKE A SOLID.

Dissolve muriate of lime in water until it will dissolve no more; make also a similar solution of carbonate of potash; both will be transparent fluids; but if equal quantities of each be mixed and stirred together, they will become a solid mass.

TWO SOLIDS MAKE A LIQUID.

Rub together in a mortar, equal quantities of the crystals of Glauber’s salts and nitrate of ammonia, and the two salts will slowly become a liquid.

A SOLID OPAQUE MASS MADE A TRANSPARENT LIQUID.

Take the solid mixture of the solutions of muriate of lime and carbonate of potash, pour upon it a very little nitric acid, and the solid opaque mass will be changed to a transparent liquid.

TWO COLD LIQUIDS MAKE A HOT ONE.

Mix four drams of sulphuric acid, (oil of vitrol,) with one dram of cold water, suddenly, in a cup, and the mixture will be nearly half as hot again as boiling water.

QUADRUPLE TRANSMUTATION.

Dissolve a small piece of nickel in nitric acid, and it will appear of a fine grass-green colour; add to it a little ammonia, and a blue precipitate will be formed; this will change to a purple-red in a few hours, and the addition of any acid will convert it to an apple-green.

QUINTUPLE TRANSMUTATION.

Heat potassium over the flame of a spirit-lamp, and the colour will change from white to a bright azure, thence to a bright blue, green, and olive.

COMBINATION OF COLOURS.

Cut out a disc or circle of pasteboard, and cover it with paper half green and half black: cause the disc to be rapidly turned round, (like the shafts of a toy wind-mill,) and the colours will combine and produce white.

UNION OF TWO METALS WITHOUT HEAT.

Cut a circular piece of gold-leaf, called “dentist’s gold,” about half an inch in diameter; drop upon it a globule of mercury, about the size of a small pea, and if they be left for a short time, the gold will lose its solidity and yellow colour, and the mercury its liquid form, making a soft mass, of the colour of mercury.

MAGIC BREATH.