Amusing Experiments.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 593, 11 April 1891, Page 3

Amusing Experiments.

At the Royal Institute the first Christmas lecture to juveniles by Professor Dewar, on Frost and Fire, was little better than a series of breakdowns. The young folks present attached more importance to the illustrations the text of the discourse, but they had to put up with a disappointment. The professor undertook to show how savages obtained fire from the friction of two pieces of wood, but all his efforts were unavailing, and he had to try to laugh off his want of success-by acknowledging that the savages were cleverer in their own sphere than he was He then tried to show the youngsters how a fire could be got by a flint and steel, but although he could produce the sparks, he could not persuade the tinder to ignite. He tried tu make the most of his defeat by saying, “It was not vital to bis purpose to suc<- •-1, for, at. any rate, they-woui-l see the <1 ffl uity of-doing it,” whereat the youngs .i* were g->od natured enough to laugh Aud yet the r e must still be some old smokers extant who are sufficiently conservative to rely upon their primitive mode of lighting their pipes. Ib is not quite 60 years ago since Jucifers were invented, and they did hof come into common use for some years after. The professor huve be*n more successful if he had exhibited a flash in the pan of an old musket. The smoker still “ carries his roast meat in a tube, his kitchen in a box but the box bears the brand ° Tandstickor,” which may he taken to be good Swedish for * tindemict.” But Brown Bess an i the tinder box appears to be known only archeeologically to the professors of modern science. Dr Dewar next undertook to show that combustible bodies are not easily ignited by red heat merely, and he asked his young friends to observe that sparks could not be relied upon to light gas. - A tube connected with a gas fitting was held to a shower of sparks, and no ignition took place. To complete the experiment a white light was applied to the gas, but it stdl refused to burn, and it was then found that the gas had never b«-en turned on ’ There were some other experiments which were more or less successful, but they were all eclipsed by the brilliancy of the illustration of * ‘ how not to do it.” If the juveniles Wertt to the pantomime as well as the Royal Instituiion they could not fail to draw comparisons unfavorable to the latter, for clown and pantaloons are usually proficient in thSir tricks.