American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1873-08-02
EXPERIMENTS.


l
| often thought to be one of the most ten
der of substances. You may surprise
| most persons by declaring that paper, ten
der as it seems to be- is really substance
of exceeding strength. Would you prove
| it to be so? 1t is easily done
| Take half sheet of ''fools-cap' and
| gum each end to a smooth, strong bar OF
rod of wood These bars must be longer
than the paper is wide, so that each will
| project three or four inches on both sides
| beyond the edges of the sheet. In putting
the paper upon the sticks, carefully ar
range them TO be parallel, and see that the
paper is smoothly laid. Your apparatus
is then complete, and you need wait, be-
fore using it, only until it becomes thor
oughly dry.
Then select a friend, and each of you
| grasp the ends of one of the bars as han
dies. You may sit upon the carpet, if
you choose, and place your feet together,
and, thus braced, you are ready for the
struggle. Pull steadily, at first gently,
but gradually with more and more
| stronghold not jerk, nor twist but pull
steadily and squarcly, lengthwise of the
sheet. You may find yourself unable to
pull the sheet apart. Not long ago, two
good strong young men, in my presence,
and much to the amusement of their class
mates, found themselves too weak to
break a half sheet of letter paperl Try it.
Now think of this. The paper is made
up of very small particles. Why can you
not pull them asunder? There must evil
| IDENTIFY be some f0rce among them by which
they are so firmly held together. What
shall we call it? Let us give it the name
by which philosophers know it. 1t is
particles so firmly together that the
strength of two persons is severely taxed
to overcome it. And this, too, in so ten
der thing as paper; what, then, may be
expected of it in SO strong substance as
non? l will tell you. A rod of good
cast-steel an inch in diameter will bear a
pull of more than sixty thousand pounds
at each end before the attraction among
its particles will yield and the rod break.
FOR. THE GIRLS. -
Is not looking glass pleasant thing
to look upon? IF looking into one glass
will show us pretty effects and give US
some pleasure, what must happen if we
look into two at once? Do not ask me,
but go directly to the mirrors and ask
them.
Take two looking glasses of convenient
size, and stand them on their edges upon
table so that they are open like the let
ter V. Next put your own face down at
the opening of the V and look in; you
will find a ohole circle Of little girls already
intently If you smile, each one smiles
in return; but the least frown from
you will drive all their smiles away and
saddeIi ali their faces. You will surely
be pleased with this surprise party
If there are too many guests for your
convenience, then make the opening of
the V wider by moving one or both the
mirrors outward, and they will take their
departure, one after another, until only
single individual is left. But if the party
is too small just make the open. ing of the
narrower, by moving the mirrors grad
ual1y closer together and the guests will
enter, one by one, until your circle is
crowded even to its utmost capacity. The
opening of the V is the open door; open
it more widely, and your guests depart;
but shut it more closely, and they not
only remain but others enter.
Open the mirrors until they shall make
a right angle, that is TO say, until one be-
ing lengthwise of the table, the other
stands directly across it, and then put a
vase of flowers between them. Three
other vases make their appearance; there
are four instead of one. Is is not very
pretty way to arrange bouquets?
Now these pictures, or, as they are
properly called, images, are painted by the
light that goes away from your face or
from your vase to fall upon the surfaces
of the mirrors When a ball is thrown
against the floor it bounds away again,
and when light falls upon mirror it, too,
bounds away. You may catch the ball on
your hand, but the light you may catch in
your eye. If it start from your face and
and bounds back into your eye, the light
enables you to see your image in the glass.
But some of the light bounds away from
the surface of one glass and strikes against
the surface of the other, and then bounds
from thence into your eye, and thus ena-
bles you to see n second image. Indeed,
the light which starts from your face
bounds back and forth from one mirror to
the other, and at every bound a portion of
it is thrown into your eye. In this way
the several images are produced.
The student Of natural philosophy has
another word to describe this motion of
the light Instead of saying that the
light bounds away from the mirror, he
declares that the light is reflected by the
mirror.
How many and how beautiful are the
effects produced by the reflection of light
The sky, with all its floating clouds or
shining stars, is painted in every pool of
water because the light from them, falling
upon the surface of the water, is reflected
to our eyes. Rocks, and shrubbery, and
dwellings, and meadows, along the banks
of the quiet lake or the smoothly flowing
river, are pictured in the water with skill
exceeding that of any human artist.
We see by reflected light Seldom, in
deed, do we get the direct rays of light
into the eye, but the sunbeams fall upon
the various objects around u.s. and, reflect
ed from their surfaces, enter the eye. BY
this reflected light the objects become
visible.-What Merit.