A 557269
THE
STORY
BOOK
OF
SCIENCE
JEAN
HENRI
FABRE
1817 SCIENTIA
ARTES
VERITAS LIBRARY OF IGAN CHTHE MI TY I S R E V OF UNI
PLURICUS UMUM
TUEBOR
SI-QUERIS PENINS
ULAM AMENAM
CIRCUM
SPICE
From the Library of A. W. Diack
CHAPTER XI THE KETTLE OW, that day, Mother Ambroisine was very W NOtired. She had taken down from their shelves kettles, saucepans, lamps, candlesticks, casseroles , pans, and lids .
After having rubbed them with fine
sand and ashes , then washed them well, she had put the utensils in the sun to dry them thoroughly. all shone like a mirror.
They
The kettles particularly
were superb with their rosy reflections ; one might have said that tongues of fire were shining inside them. The candlesticks were a dazzling yellow. Emile and Jules were lost in admiration . " I should like to know what they make kettles of, they shine so , " remarked Emile.
" They are very
ugly outside, all black, daubed with soot ; but inside, how beautiful they are !" " You must ask Uncle, " replied his brother. "Yes," assented Emile. No sooner said than done : they went in search of He did not have to be entreated ; he
their uncle.
was happy whenever there was an opportunity to teach them something .
" Kettles are made of copper, " he began. " And copper ?" asked Jules . " Copper is not made .
In certain countries , it is
found already made , mixed with stone.
It is one of
the substances that it is not in the power of man to 49
50
THE STORY-BOOK OF SCIENCE
make. We use these substances as God has depos ited them in the bosom of the earth for purposes of human industry ; but all our knowledge and all our skill could not produce them.
" In the bosom of mountains where copper is found, they hollow out galleries which go down deep into the
earth.
There
workmen
called
miners ,
with
lamps to light them , attack the rock with great blows of the pick, while others carry the detached blocks outside . These blocks of stone in which copper is found are called ore.
In furnaces made for the pur
pose they heat the ore to a very high temperature. The heat of our stove, when it is red-hot, is nothing in comparison.
The copper melts, runs , and is sep
arated from the rest.
Then , with hammers of enor
mous weight, set in motion by a wheel turned by water, they strike the mass of copper which, little by little, becomes thin and is hollowed into a large basin. " The coppersmith continues the work.
He takes
the shapeless basin and, with little strokes of the hammer, fashions it on the anvil to give it a regular shape." " That is why coppersmiths tap all day with their hammers ," commented Jules.
" I had often won
dered, when passing their shops, why they made so much noise , always tapping, without any stop .
They
were thinning the copper ; shaping it into saucepans and kettles . " Here Emile asked :
" When a kettle is old, has
holes in it and can't be used, what do they do with it? I heard Mother Ambroisine speak of selling a worn out kettle. "
THE KETTLE
51
"It is melted, and another new kettle made out of the copper, " replied Uncle Paul.
" Then the copper does not wear away?" "It wears away too much, my friend : some of it is lost when they rub it with sand to make it shine ; some is lost, too, by the continual action of the fire ; but what is left is still good. "
" Mother Ambroisine also spoke of recasting a lamp which had lost a foot.
What are lamps made
of?" "They are of tin, another substance that we find ready-made in the bosom of the earth, without the power of producing it ourselves . "