Conversations on Chemistry Part 45

MRS. B.

In order to produce charcoal in its purest state (which is, even then, but a less imperfect sort of carbon), the operation should be performed in an earthen retort. Heat being applied to the body of the retort, the evaporable part of the wood will escape through its neck, into which no air can penetrate as long as the heated vapour continues to fill it. And if it be wished to collect these volatile products of the wood, this can easily be done by introducing the neck of the retort into the water-bath apparatus, with which you are acquainted. But the preparation of common charcoal, such as is used in kitchens and manufactures, is performed on a much larger scale, and by an easier and less expensive process.

EMILY.

I have seen the process of making common charcoal. The wood is ranged on the ground in a pile of a pyramidical form, with a fire underneath; the whole is then covered with clay, a few holes only being left for the circulation of air.

MRS. B.

These holes are closed as soon as the wood is fairly lighted, so that the combustion is checked, or at least continues but in a very imperfect manner; but the heat produced by it is sufficient to force out and volatilize, through the earthy cover, most part of the oily and watery principles of the wood, although it cannot reduce it to ashes.

EMILY.

Is pure carbon as black as charcoal?

MRS. B.

The purest charcoal we can prepare is so; but chemists have never yet been able to separate it entirely from hydrogen. Sir H. Davy says, that the most perfect carbon that is prepared by art contains about five per cent. of hydrogen; he is of opinion, that if we could obtain it quite free from foreign ingredients, it would be metallic, in common with other simple substances.

But there is a form in which charcoal appears, that I dare say will surprise you. --This ring, which I wear on my finger, owes its brilliancy to a small piece of carbon.

CAROLINE.

Surely, you are jesting, Mrs. B.?

EMILY.

I thought your ring was diamond?

MRS. B.

It is so. But diamond is nothing more than carbon in a crystallized state.

EMILY.

That is astonis.h.i.+ng! Is it possible to see two things apparently more different than diamond and charcoal?

CAROLINE.

It is, indeed, curious to think that we adorn ourselves with jewels of charcoal!

MRS. B.

There are many other substances, consisting chiefly of carbon, that are remarkably white. Cotton, for instance, is almost wholly carbon.

CAROLINE.

That, I own, I could never have imagined! --But pray, Mrs. B., since it is known of what substance diamond and cotton are composed, why should they not be manufactured, or imitated, by some chemical process, which would render them much cheaper, and more plentiful than the present mode of obtaining them?

MRS. B.

You might as well, my dear, propose that we should make flowers and fruit, nay, perhaps even animals, by a chemical process; for it is known of what these bodies consist, since every thing which we are acquainted with in nature is formed from the various simple substances that we have enumerated. But you must not suppose that a knowledge of the component parts of a body will in every case enable us to imitate it. It is much less difficult to decompose bodies, and discover of what materials they are made, than it is to recompose them. The first of these processes is called _a.n.a.lysis_, the last _synthesis_. When we are able to ascertain the nature of a substance by both these methods, so that the result of one confirms that of the other, we obtain the most complete knowledge of it that we are capable of acquiring. This is the case with water, with the atmosphere, with most of the oxyds, acids, and neutral salts, and with many other compounds. But the more complicated combinations of nature, even in the mineral kingdom, are in general beyond our reach, and any attempt to imitate organised bodies must ever prove fruitless; their formation is a secret that rests in the bosom of the Creator. You see, therefore, how vain it would be to attempt to make cotton by chemical means. But, surely, we have no reason to regret our inability in this instance, when nature has so clearly pointed out a method of obtaining it in perfection and abundance.

CAROLINE.

I did not imagine that the principle of life could be imitated by the aid of chemistry; but it did not appear to me ridiculous to suppose that chemists might attain a perfect imitation of inanimate nature.

MRS. B.

They have succeeded in this point in a variety of instances; but, as you justly observe, the principle of life, or even the minute and intimate organisation of the vegetable kingdom, are secrets that have almost entirely eluded the researches of philosophers; nor do I imagine that human art will ever be capable of investigating them with complete success.

EMILY.

But diamond, since it consists of one simple unorganised substance, might be, one would think, perfectly imitable by art?

MRS. B.

It is sometimes as much beyond our power to obtain a simple body in a state of perfect purity, as it is to imitate a complicated combination; for the operations by which nature separates bodies are frequently as inimitable as those which she uses for their combination. This is the case with carbon; all the efforts of chemists to separate it entirely from other substances have been fruitless, and in the purest state in which it can be obtained by art, it still retains a portion of hydrogen, and probably of some other foreign ingredients. We are ignorant of the means which nature employs to crystallize it. It may probably be the work of ages, to purify, arrange, and unite the particles of carbon in the form of diamond. Here is some charcoal in the purest state we can procure it: you see that it is a very black, brittle, light, porous substance, entirely dest.i.tute of either taste or smell. Heat, without air, produces no alteration in it, as it is not volatile; but, on the contrary, it invariably remains at the bottom of the vessel after all the other parts of the vegetable are evaporated.

EMILY.

Yet carbon is, no doubt, combustible, since you say that charcoal would absorb oxygen if air were admitted during its preparation?

CAROLINE.

Unquestionably. Besides, you know, Emily, how much it is used in cooking. But pray what is the reason that charcoal burns without smoke, whilst a wood fire smokes so much?

MRS. B.

Because, in the conversion of wood into charcoal, the volatile particles of the former have been evaporated.

CAROLINE.

Yet I have frequently seen charcoal burn with flame; therefore it must, in that case, contain some hydrogen.

MRS. B.

Very true; but you must recollect that charcoal, especially that which is used for common purposes, is not perfectly pure. It generally retains some remains of the various other component parts of vegetables, and hydrogen particularly, which accounts for the flame in question.

CAROLINE.

But what becomes of the carbon itself during its combustion?

MRS. B.

It gradually combines with the oxygen of the atmosphere, in the same way as sulphur and phosphorus, and, like those substances, it is converted into a peculiar acid, which flies off in a gaseous form. There is this difference, however, that the acid is not, in this instance, as in the two cases just mentioned, a mere condensable vapour, but a permanent elastic fluid, which always remains in the state of gas, under any pressure and at any temperature. The nature of this acid was first ascertained by Dr. Black, of Edinburgh; and, before the introduction of the new nomenclature, it was called _fixed air_. It is now distinguished by the more appropriate name of _carbonic acid gas_.

EMILY.