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About ten minutes later we heard a sound that nearly knocked me out. It was the steamer with the other fellow's show. We heard the blow, but could not get a glimpse of the blowpipe. We could hear, but could not see. We remained on board some time, and then all hands went ashore. The fog still hung over the water and the whistle continued to blow. We resolved to play a desperate game.
He did not like it when I laughed at all this, and went on with great seriousness to speak of the unmade blowpipe that would be mine speaking of it as if it had been something very great, equal to the gift of a large tract of land, or the governorship of a province, north of the Orinoco.
If a young man should happen to be in love with a girl before he can handle his blowpipe with dexterity and profit, or is able to procure the wedding presents prescribed by habit, he will perhaps persuade his sweetheart to meet him in the forest.
This earthy matter is of a pale yellowish- brown colour, and appears to be a mixture of carbonate of lime with iron; it effervesces with acids, is infusible, but blackens under the blowpipe, and becomes magnetic.
"Vapour of lime" some call it; and it may be so, but there is no other change of the lime than that under the action of heat of this highly-exalted chemical condition, though almost any other substance would melt at once. Then, as to the way in which the heat is applied to the substance. It is all very well for me to take a piece of antimony, and fuse it in the flame of a blowpipe.
It is considerably harder than calcareous spar, but can be scratched with a knife; under the blowpipe it scales off, decrepitates, slightly blackens, emits a fetid odour, and becomes strongly alkaline: it does not effervesce in acids.
Applying the heat of the blowpipe to it, you see how the heat drives off the vapour; and if you notice at the end of the Lecture, you will observe on the stone a purple patch of condensed gold. Thus you see a proof of the volatilisation of gold. It is the same with silver. You will not be startled if I sometimes use one agent and sometimes another to illustrate a particular point.
This substance slightly blackens under the blowpipe, emits a bad smell, then becomes quite white, swelling a little, and fuses into a dull white enamel; it does not become alkaline; nor does it effervesce in acids. The whole mass had a collapsed appearance, as if in the formation of the hard glossy crust the whole had shrunk much.
I'm blessed if I believe they even think of us as men at all just lump us off with the machinery, like. One man, one blowpipe, one marver and the man least 'count of all." The other chuckled softly, then waved his hand towards a group of shapely cottages off at the right.
"That was what I injected into the air cushion of that safe between the two linings. I suppose my man here used an electric drill. He might have used thermit or an oxyacetylene blowpipe for all I would care. These fumes would discourage a cracksman from 'soup' to nuts," he laughed, thoroughly pleased at the protection modern science had enabled him to devise.
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