Various

“ The Massachusetts Judge did not conceive any distinction as to fire-loss between the instantaneous burning of a barrel of gunpowder and the slower burning of a barrel of sulphur, and insurance fire-loss is not to be interpreted legally by thermo-dynamics nor thermo chemistry. While the legal principles are as yet unsettled, the tenor of current decisions may be summed up as follows: If explosion cause fire, and fire cause loss, it is a loss by fire as proximate cause; and if fire cause explosion, and explosion cause loss, it is a loss by fire as efficient cause. ”

“ Every element makes a different spectrum with lines in different places and of different widths. These have been memorized by chemists, so that when an expert having a spectroscope sees anything burn he can tell what it is as well as read a printed page. Men have learned the alphabet of the universe, and can read in all things radiating light, the constituent elements. The black lines in the solar spectrum are there because in the atmosphere of the sun exist vapors of metals, and the light from the liquid metals below is unable to pass through and reach the earth, being absorbed kind for kind. ”

“ Astronomers observe a star to-day with a powerful telescope and micrometer; and in six months again measure the same star. But meanwhile the earth has moved 183,000,000 miles to the east, so that if the star has changed place, this enormous journey caused it, and the change equals a line 91,400,000 miles long as viewed from the star. For years many such observations were made; but behold the star was always in the same place; the whole distance of the sun having dwindled down to the diameter of a pin point in comparison with the awful chasm separating us from the stars. ”

“ Within the past five years, scientific men have surpassed previous efforts in close measurement and refined analysis. By means of instruments of exceeding delicacy, processes in nature hitherto unknown, are made palpable to sense. Heat is found in ice, light in seeming darkness, and sound in apparent silence. It seems that physicists and chemists have almost if not quite reached the ultimate atoms of matter. The mechanism must be sensitive, as such properties of matter as heat, light, electricity, magnetism, and actinism, are to be handled, caused to vanish and reappear, analyzed and measured. ”

“ The potential at any point is, in fact, measured by the work done in moving a unit of electricity from the point to an infinite distance. Indeed the resultant force at any point is directly proportional to the rate of fall of potential per unit length along the line of force passing through that point. If there be no fall of potential there can be no resultant force; hence if we take any surface in the field such that the potential is the same at every point of the surface, we have what is called an equipotential surface. ”

“ There is not much danger in the use of kerosene, if it is of the standard required by law in several of the States. At the same time petroleum is dangerous under certain conditions. Where oil is heated it is more or less inflammable, and, in fact, inflammability is only a question of temperature of the oil, after all. Burning oils should be kept in a moderately cool place, and always with care. Of course, if a lighted lamp is dropped and broken, the oil is liable to take fire, though the lamp may be put out in the fall, or the light drowned by the oil, or the oil not take fire at all. ”

“ When the display is at the height of its magnificence, the astronomer cuts the cord; the slide makes an exposure of one-three thousandth part of a second, and an accurate photograph is taken. The storm all in rapid motion is petrified on the plate; everything is distinct, all the surging billows of fire, boilings, and turbulence are rendered motionless with the velocity of lightning. ”

“ The vender, to make his oil appear non-explosive, unscrews the wick-tube and applies a match, when the vapor in the lamp quietly takes fire and burns without explosion. Or he pours some of the 'safety oil' into a saucer and lights it. There is no explosion, and ignorant persons, biased by the saving of a few cents per gallon, purchase the most dangerous oils in the market. It is not possible to make gasoline, naphtha, or benzine safe by any addition that can be made to it. Nor is any oil safe that can be set on fire at the ordinary temperature of the air. ”

“ Carbonic acid is soluble in water, and at the ordinary pressure and temperature one volume of water will hold in solution one volume of the gas; under increased pressures, far larger quantities of the gas can be held in solution, but this is rapidly evolved as soon as the excess of pressure is removed. Upon this property the manufacture of aerated waters depends. The presence of free carbonic acid can be easily detected by causing the gas to pass over the surface of some clear lime-water. If any be present a white film of carbonate of lime will at once be formed. ”

“ If disastrous results have arisen from the vapor of turpentine as a fire spreader in vaults without windows, it is possible that if a quantity of hot water were suddenly converted into steam in closely confined spaces, effects of pressure might be observed, less destructive perhaps, but resembling those which other explosives might produce. If the immense temperature attained in some conflagrations be considered--sufficient to melt iron and vitrify brick--it is possible to conceive of water as being instantly converted into steam. ”

“ Any one who has seen the brilliance with which potassium and sodium burn upon water can easily imagine how such strong affinity of oxygen for these substances might aid in severing its union in water in their presence and under extraordinary heat. ”

“ With these different sources of supply it might reasonably be thought that carbonic acid would be gradually accumulating in our atmosphere; the breathing of animals, the eruption of volcanoes, the combustion of fuel, and the fermentation of sugar, are ever going on, and to a fast-increasing extent with the progress of civilization, and yet the proportion of carbonic acid in our atmosphere is no greater now than it was at the earliest time when exact chemical research determined its presence and quantity. A counteracting influence is always at work ”

“ No wonder we have kerosene accidents, with agents scattered through the country selling county rights and teaching retail dealers how to make these murderous 'non-explosive' oils. The experiments these venders make to deceive their dupes are very convincing. None of the petroleum products are explosive per se, nor are their vapors explosive under all circumstances when mixed with air. A certain ratio of air to vapor is necessary to make an explosive mixture. Equal volumes of vapor and air will not explode; three parts of air and one of vapor gives a vigorous puff when ignited in a vessel ”

“ With Thompson's calorimeter the reverse is the case, as the whole of the heating power of the hydrogen is taken into account. In short, with careful working, the more bituminous a coal is the more certain is it that its full heating power shall be exerted and recorded, so far as the apparatus is capable of indicating it; for when the result obtained is multiplied by the equivalent of the latent heat of steam the product is always below the theoretical heat units calculated from the chemical composition of the coal by the acid of Favre and Silbermann's figures for carbon and hydrogen. ”

“ If a little strong sulphuric acid be added to some powdered cane sugar in a glass, the mass will soon begin to darken in color and swell up, and in the course of a few minutes a mass of black porous carbon will separate, which can be purified from the acid by repeated washings; the sugar is composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, the two last-named elements being present in the exact proportion necessary to form water; the sulphuric acid having a strong affinity for water, removes the hydrogen and oxygen, and the carbon is then left in a free state. ”

“ Gaseous iron sifts out all rays emitted from melted iron, and so do the vapors of all other elements in the sun, radiating light in unison with their own. Sodium, iron, calcium, hydrogen, magnesium, and many other substances are now known to be incandescent in the sun and stars; and the results of the developments of the spectroscope may be summed up in the generalization that all bodies in the universe are composed of the same substance the earth is. ”

“ You throw table salt down a blazing chimney to set free the flame-suppressing hydrochloric acid, you discharge a loaded gun up a blazing chimney to put out the fire by another agency; still the salt, with certain combinations, may be explosive, a resinous vapor may be combustive in a hydrochloric atmosphere, and gunpowder isn't harmless when thrown upon a blaze--in fact, our common fire-extinguisher, water, has its explosive incidences as liquid as well as vapor.
Gases explosive in association may be set free by the temperature of a burning building and get together. ”

“ Since the calorific power of a coal is determined by the number of degrees Fahrenheit which a given quantity of water is raised in temperature by a known weight of fuel, it follows that every care should be taken that the experiment be performed under similar atmospheric conditions. The oscillation of barometric pressure does not appear to affect the working, but the temperature of the room in which the work was done, and especially that of the water, are most important considerations. ”

“ But, fortunately, we have faith in the measurements, of which I have already spoken, in the facts given us by Joule's experiments and formulated in ways we can understand. And these facts tell us that in electric machines of the future, and in their connecting wires, there will be little heating, and therefore little loss. We shall, I believe, at no distant date, have great central stations, possibly situated at the bottom of coal-pits where enormous steam engines will drive enormous electric machines. ”

“ The nature of the metal of which the latter is made is subordinate, not only to the maximum temperature to which the apparatus are to be exposed, but also to the nature of the liquid employed. It is of either yellow metal or iron. To prevent oxidation of the tube, when iron is employed, it is inclosed within another iron tube and the space between the two is filled in with lead. When the apparatus is exposed to a high temperature the lead melts and prevents the air from reaching the inner tube, so that no oxidation can take place. ”

“ This will be the effect if the oil is cool and of high flash test. When a lamp is lighted, and remains burning for some time, it should never be turned down and set aside. The theory is, that while lighting, a certain supply of gas is created from the oil, and that when the wick is turned down that supply still continues to flow out, and not being consumed, forms an inflammable gas in the chimney, which will explode when a sufficient quantity of air is mixed with it in the presence of light, which may happen if a person blows down the chimney ”

“ Throughout the visible universe, the faintest pulsations of atoms are detected, and countless millions of infinitely small waves, bearing light, heat, and sound, are discovered and their lengths determined. Refined spectroscopic analysis of light is now made so that when any material burns, no matter what its distance, its spectrum tells what substance is burning. When any luminous body appears, it can be told whether it is approaching or receding, or whether it shines by its own or reflected light ”

“ The manufacturers of petroleum products have exhausted the whole resources of chemistry to make this product available as a safe burning oil, and their inability to do so proclaims the fact that it cannot be done. Chemistry has shown that naphtha, and, in fact, the other products of petroleum, will not part with their hydrogen or change the nature of their compounds, except by decomposition from a union with oxygen, that is, by combustion. ”

“ In 1844, for the first time, Professors Faraday and Lyell, employed by the British government, discovered that explosion in bituminous coal mines was the quickening of the comparatively slow burning of the "fire-damp" by the almost instantaneous combustion of the fine coal-dust present in the mines. The flyings of the cotton mill do not explode, but flame passes through them with a rapidity almost instantaneous, yet not sufficient to exert the pressure which explodes; the dust of the wood planer and sawer only as yet makes sudden puffs without detonating force. ”

“ The design and construction of the works for developing a large water power, together with the necessary arrangements for utilizing it and providing for its subdivision among the parties entitled to it according to their respective rights, affords an extensive field for civil engineers; and in view of the vast amount of it yet undeveloped, but which, with the increase of population and the constantly increasing demand for mechanical power as a substitute for hand labor, must come into use, the field must continue to enlarge for a long time to come. ”

“ He shows that the latter alternative is possible with the aid of a mechanical theory of electricity. If the radiant matter produced in the vacuum is a phenomenon sui generis, produced by the action of electricity and heat upon the molecules of gas remaining in the receiver, it is, in the first place, doubtful to apply to it the conception of an aggregate condition. The author considers it impossible to form a clear understanding of the phenomena in accordance with the theory of Crookes, or to find in the facts any evidence of the existence of radiant matter. ”

“ The explosive power of any substance is the pressure it exerts on all parts of the space containing it at the instant of explosion, and is measured by comparing the heat disengaged with the volume of gas emitted, and with the rapidity of chemical action. In the case of gunpowder, the proper manipulation and division of the grains is important, because favoring rapid deflagration ”

“ At the eye end of the telescope is attached the spectroscope and the micrometer, and the whole set of instruments so adjusted that just the edge of the sun is seen, making a half spectrum. The other half of the spectroscope projects above the solar limb, and is dark, so if an explosion throws up liquid jets, or flames of hydrogen, the astronomer at once sees them and with the micrometer measures their height before they have time to fall. ”