If common salt is dissolved in water and the water is heated and allowed to evaporate, then the residuum of salt is precipitated also, not in the form of a powder, but in cubes. If saltpeter and salt are dissolved to-gether, the residuum of the two substances do not com-bine, but each is precipitated in its own form : the salt-peter in prisms, the salt in cubes.
If lime or any other salt or any other substance is dissolved in water and the water is evaporated, each substance is precipitated in its own peculiar way : one in triangular prisms, another in octagonal, another in brick-like forms, another in stars each in its own way. These figures are different in all solid substances. Sometimes they are large and are found like stones in the ground; sometimes they are so small that they are invisible to the naked eye; but still each substance has its own form.
If, when water is saturated with saltpeter and the figures begin to form, the edges of the figure are broken with a needle, then again in the same place there will be deposited new atoms of the saltpeter, and the broken edge will be repaired just exactly in its own proper form in hexagonal prisms. It is the same with salt and with everything else. All the infinitesimal atoms move and take their places where they are needed.
When water becomes ice, the same phenomenon takes place. A snowflake comes flying down; no figure can be seen in it. But as soon as it lights on anything moist and cold, on a pane of glass, or on fur, its form may be discerned. You can see a little star or a little plate. On the window-panes the vapor does not freeze at haphazard, but as soon as it begins to freeze it instantly branches out into star shapes.
What is ice ? It is cold solid water. When water turns from a liquid to a solid it forms figures and liberates heat. The same thing takes place with salt-peter when it changes from a liquid to a solid form : heat is liberated. The same with salt, the same with cast-iron, when it cools down from its melted to its solid form.
When anything turns from a liquid to a solid, it liberates heat and begins to form crystals. But when it changes from a solid to a liquid then it absorbs heat; its coldness disappears and its crystals melt.
Take melted iron and let it cool; take hot dough and let it cool; take slaked lime and let it cool heat is pro-duced. Take ice and melt it cold is produced. Take saltpeter, salt, or anything else which is soluble, and put it into water cold is produced. So that when you want to make ice-cream, you melt salt and water.
Chapter V
BAD AIR
ONE festive day, at the village of Nikolskoye, the people had gone to mass. On the estate 1 were left the cattle-woman, the village elder, 2 and the hostler.
The cattle-woman went to the well after water. The well was in the yard itself. She was drawing up the bucket, but failed to hold it. The bucket slipped from her, struck against the side of the well, and broke the rope.
The cattle-woman returned to her cottage, and said to the elder :
“ Aleksandr, come, little father, to the well; I have dropped the bucket”
Aleksandr replied :
“ You dropped it, and you must get it out.”
The cattle-woman replied that she was going to climb down into the well, only she wanted him to hold her.
The elder said :
“Very well, then; let us go; you have been fasting lately, so I can hold you; but if you had had dinner, it would be impossible.”
The elder fastened a stake to the rope, and the woman sat astride of it, clinging to the rope, and she began to descend into the well, and the elder unwound the rope by means of the windlass. The well was about fourteen feet 1 deep, and there was a third of a fathom of water in it.
The elder kept turning back the windlass slowly, and shouting to the woman :
“ Is that enough ? “
And the cattle-woman kept crying :
“Just a little more.”
Suddenly the elder felt the rope slacken; he shouted to the woman, but she gave no answer. The elder looked down into the well, and saw that the woman was lying with her head in the water and her feet in the air.
The elder began to shout and call the people, but there was no one to come. Only the hostler came running.
The elder bade him hold the windlass, and he himself pulled up the rope, got astride of the stake, and de-scended into the well.
As soon as the hostler let the elder down to the water’s edge, the same thing happened. He let go of the rope, and fell head-first down on the cattle-woman.
The hostler began to cry for help; then he ran to the church for the people. Mass was over, and the people were returning from church. All the peasant men and women hastened to the well. They all stood around the curb, and each offered advice, but no one knew what to do.
A young carpenter forced his way through the throng, up to the well, seized the rope, sat on the stake, and told them to let him down. But Ivan took the precaution to fasten the rope to his waist. Two men let him down, and all the rest looked into the well to see what would happen to Ivan.
As soon as he reached the level of the water, he let go of the rope with his hands, and would have fallen in head-first, but for the fact of the girdle holding him.
All cried :
“Pull him back!”
And they lifted Ivan to the top.
He hung on the rope like a dead weight. His head hung down and thumped against the edge of the well.
His face was bluish purple. They seized him, un-fastened the rope, and laid him on the ground. They thought that he was dead; but he suddenly drew a deep sigh, began to clear his throat, and came to.
Then still others proposed to go down; but an old peasant said that it was impossible to go down into the well, for there was bad air in it, and this bad air was death to men.
Then the men ran to get gaffs, and they attempted to hook up the elder and the woman. The elder’s wife and mother were shrieking near the well; the others were trying to calm them.
Then the peasants brought the gaffs to the well, and began to grapple for the two victims. Twice they lifted the elder, by means of his clothes, halfway up the well, to the well-curb; but he was heavy, his clothes tore, and he fell back. At last they hooked him with two gaffs and brought him to the surface. Then they brought up the cattle-woman in the same way.
Both were stone dead, and could not be brought to life.
Then, when an investigation of the well was made, they found that the bottom of the well was full of bad air.
This sort of air is so heavy, that no man can live in it nor any living thing exist in it.
They let a cat down into the well, and as soon as it reached the place where the bad air was, it immediately died.
Not only can no living thing live in it, but a candle cannot burn in it.
They let down a candle, and as soon as it reached the same place, it was immediately extinguished.
There are places under the earth where this bad air accumulates; and if you should go into them, you would immediately perish. Hence in mines they have lamps, and before a man goes into such a place they let a lamp down first.
If the lamp goes out, then it is impossible for a man to enter. So they send down a supply of fresh air until the lamp will burn. Near the city of Naples there is such a grotto. In it the bad air always stands to a height of an arshin l above the ground, and above that the air is pure. A man can walk through this grotto and receive no harm; but as soon as a dog enters, he chokes to death.
Whence comes this bad air ?
It is made out of the same good air which we breathe. If many people are collected in one room, and all the doors and windows are shut so that no fresh air can get in, then the atmosphere becomes the same as in the well, and the people perish.
A hundred years ago the Hindus shut one hundred and forty-six Englishmen into a dungeon, and locked them up in an underground hole, where the air could not get to them.
The imprisoned Englishmen, after they had been there a few hours, began to choke, and at the end of the night one hundred and twenty-three of them were dead, and the rest were taken out barely alive, and ill.
At first the air had been pure in the dungeon; but when the prisoners had breathed up all the good air, and it was impossible to get any fresh supply, it became bad, like that in the well, and they died.
How is it that bad air is made out of good air, when many people are together ?
Because when people breathe, the good air is taken
