Carbonic acid gas, then, is carbon or charcoal dissolved in oxygen. Here is black soot getting invisible and changing into air; and this seems strange, uncle, doesn't it?"

"Ahem! Strange, if true," answered Mr. Bagges. "Eh?-well! I suppose it's all right."

"Quite so, uncle. uncle. Burn carbon or charcoal either in the air or in oxygen, and it is sure always to make carbonic acid, and nothing else, if it is dry. No dew or mist gathers in a cold glass jar if you burn dry charcoal in it. The charcoal goes entirely into carbonie acid gas, and leaves nothing behind but ashes, which are only earthly stuff that was in the charcoal, but not part of the charcoal itself. And now, shall I tell you something about carbon ?"

"With all my heart," assented Mr. Bagges.

"I said that there was carbon or charcoal in all common lights,- -so there is in every common kind of fuel. If you heat coal or wood away from the air, some gas comes away, and leaves behind coke from coal, and charcoal from wood; both carbon, though not pure. Heat carbon as much as you will in a close vessel, and it does not change in the least; but let the air get to it, and then it burns and flies off in carbonic acid gas. This makes carbon so convenient for fuel. But it is ornamental as well as useful, uncle. The diamond is nothing else than carbon."

"The diamond, eh? You mean the black diamond." "No; the diamond, really and truly. The diamond is only carbon in the shape of a crystal."

"Eh? and can't some of your clever chemists crystallise a little bit of carbon, and make a Koh-i-noor?"

"Ah, uncle, perhaps we shall some day. In the meantime I suppose we must be content with making carbon so brilliant as it is in the flame of a candle. Well; now you see that a candle-flame is vapour burning, and the vapour,

in burning, turns into water and carbonic acid gas. The oxygen of both the carbonic acid gas and the water comes from the air, and the hydrogen and carbon together are the vapour. They are distilled out of the melted wax by the heat. But, you know, carbon alone can't be distilled by any heat. It can be distilled, though, when it is joined with hydrogen, as it is in the wax, and then the mixed hydrogen and carbon rise in gas of the same kind as the gas in the streets. And that also is distilled by heat from coal. So a candle is a little gas manufactory in itself, that burns the gas as fast as it makes it."

"Haven't you pretty nearly come to your candle's end ?" said Mr. Wilkinson.

66

Nearly. I only want to tell uncle that the burning of a candle is almost exactly like our breathing. Breathing is consuming oxygen, only not so fast as burning. In breathing we throw out water in vapour and carbonic acid from our lungs, and take oxygen in. Oxygen is as necessary to support the life of the body, as it is to keep up the flame of a candle."

"So," said Mr. Bagges, "man is a candle, eh? and Shakespeare knew that, I suppose (as he did most things), when he wrote

'Out, out, brief candle!'

Well, well; we old ones are moulds, and you young squires are dips and rushlights, eh? Any more to tell us about the candle?"

"I could tell you a great deal more about oxygen, and hydrogen, and carbon, and water, and breathing, that Professor Faraday said, if I had time; but you should go and hear him yourself, uncle."

"Eh? well! I think I will. Some of us seniors may

learn something from a juvenile lecture, at any rate, if given by a Faraday. And now, my boy, I will tell you what," added Mr. Bagges, "I am very glad to find you so fond of study and science; and you deserve to be encouraged; and so I'll give you a what-d' ye-call-it?-a Galvanic Battery on your next birth-day; and so much for your teaching your old uncle the chemistry of a candle."

A Paris Lewspaper.

TITHIN the precincts of that resort for foreigners

W

and provincials in Paris, the Palais Royal, is situate the Rue du 24 Fevrier. This revolutionary name, given after the last outbreak, is still pronounced with difficulty by those who, of old, were wont to call it the Rue de Valois. People are becoming accustomed to call the royally-named street by its revolutionary title, although it is probable that no one will ever succeed in calling the Palais Royal, Palais National; the force of habit being in this instance too great to efface old recollections. Few foreigners have ever penetrated into the Rue de 24 Fevrier, though it forms one of the external galleries of the Palais Royal, and one may see there the smoky kitchens, dirty cooks,—the night-side, in fact of the splendid restaurants whose gilt fronts attract attention inside. Rubicund apples, splendid game, truffles, and ortolans, deck the one side; smoke, dirty plates, rags, and smutty saucepans may be seen on the other.

It is from an office in the Rue de 24 Fevrier, almost opposite the dark side of a gorgeous Palais Royal restaurant, that issue 40,000 copies of a daily print, entitled the ( Constitutionnel.'

Newspaper offices, be it remarked, are always to be found in odd holes and corners. To the mass in London, Printing-house Square, or Lombard Street, Whitefriars, are mystical localities; yet they are the daily birth-places of that fourth estate which fulminates anathemas on all the follies and weaknesses of governments, and, without which, no one can feel free or independent. The Constitutionnel' office is about as little known to the mass of its subscribers as either Printing-house Square or Whitefriars.

There is always an old and respectable look about the interior of newspaper establishments, in whatever country you may find them. For rusty dinginess, perhaps there is nothing to equal a London office, with its floors strewed with newspapers from all parts of the world, parlimentary reports, and its shelves creaking under books of all sorts thumbed to the last extremity Notwithstanding these appearances, however, there is discipline, there is real order in the apparent disorder of things. Those newspapers that are lying in heaps have to be accurately filed; those books of reference can be pounced upon when wanted on the instant; and as to reports, the place of each is as well known as if all labelled and ticketed with the elaborate accuracy of a public library.

Not less rusty and not less disorderly is the appearance of a French newspaper office; but how different the aspect of things from what you see in England!

Över the office of the Constitutionnel' is a dingy tricolor flag. A few broken steps lead to a pair of foldingdoors. Inside is the sanctuary of the office, guarded by that flag as if by the honor of the country; for the tricolor represents all Frenchmen, be he prince or proletarian.

You enter through a narrow passage flanked with wire cages, in which are confined for the day the clerks who take