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This knowledge we have, and we have utilized it in the construction and building of our mighty planetary projects. This Interatomic Energy is the source of the sun's continuous heat. If it were combustion the Solar orb would have burnt itself out ages ago. All your theories to account for the continuity of solar radiation are in error.

*Properties of Carbon Dioxide.*—Carbon dioxide is a colorless gas with little or no odor. It does not support combustion, but on the contrary is used to some extent to extinguish fires. It is formed by the oxidation of carbon in the body, and by the combustion of carbon outside of the body. It is also formed by the decay of animal and vegetable matter.

Consider the following abstract of Penaud's design as published in his patent of 1876, and comparison of this with the aeroplane that now exists will show very few divergences except for those forced on the inventor by the fact that the internal combustion engine had not then developed.

But before the day can come for gas to be used in this way on a large scale, there is one fact which the gas manager and gas stove manufacturer must clearly realize and submit to, and that is that no gas stove or gas water heater, of any construction, should be sent out or fitted without just as great care being taken to provide for the carrying away of the products of combustion as if an ordinary fuel range was being fitted.

Other metals are still more combustible than iron. You may ignite strips of zinc in a candle flame, and cause them to burn almost like strips of paper. But we must now expand our definition of combustion, and include under this term, not only combustion in air, but also combustion in liquids.

Whether it be expected or not, it certainly does not burn, and such a stove is nothing else than a gas works, making crude gas, and wasting it it is a soot and smoke factory. Most slow combustion stoves are apt to err in this way; you make the combustion slow by cutting off air, and you run the risk of stopping the combustion altogether.

Now, I purpose burning these two things together. I have a little mortar in which I will mix them. Here is the mixture; and when I set fire to it, you must watch the combustion, and you will see that it is of two kinds. You will see the gunpowder burning with a flame, and the filings thrown up. You will see them burning too, but without the production of flame.

I stop to procure a draught of new milk, and, while drinking it, point to sundry long rows of light, flaky-looking cakes strung on strings, and motion that I am desirous of sampling a few at current rates; but the good dame smiles and shakes her head vigorously, as well enough she might, for I learn afterward that the cakes are nothing less than dried yeast-cakes, a breakfast off which would probably have produced spontaneous combustion.

In this burner, as in the regenerative furnace, the products of combustion are made to warm up the air and gas which go to feed the flame, and the effect is a full and brilliant light with some economy of fuel.

Carbon is the same thing, whether you call it wood, or coal, or bread and cheese. A reverend gentleman demurred to this statement, as if, because combustion is asserted to be the sine qua non of thought, therefore thought is alleged to be a purely chemical process. Facts of chemistry are one thing, I told him, and facts of consciousness another.