Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 July 1875 — SALT AND SNOW. [ARTICLE]

SALT AND SNOW.

BY LUCY J. KIDEK. It was a busy time at the Browns’. Lill was in the parlor practicing “ Last Rose of Summer,” Jenny was making icecream in the kitchen and Benny was helping. “ Why didn’t they buy their icecream?” Why, they lived away uip among the Green Mountains, miles and miles away from any ice-cream- saloon. Isn’t that a good reason? They were going to have a party in the evening; but I’m going to tell voa;about the ice-cream and not about the pairty, for everybody has parties, and it isn't everybody that makes ice-cream. Jenny and her mother scalded the cream and stirred in the eggs and sugar and lemon, and then poured it all into a tin pa - Benny brought in a great pan of snow, made a little bed of snow and salt in a big wooden bucket, set the tin pail over in and piled the snow and salt around the sides, while Jenny began to press it down with her fingers. “ Oh! oh!” cried she, all at once flirting her fingers in the air and rushing toward the stove. “What’s the matter, Sis ? Anythingbit you?” asked her brother. , “Ton needn’t laugh, Benny Brown,” cried Jenny, dancing around. “Just put your fingers in there and see. It’s colder than—^—” Words failed her,; and she squeezed her fingers with an injured air. Benny tried it. r “Why, it’s not so very cold,* skid he. “Fact is, Jen, you girls do scream so easy.” Just then Mrs. Brown came into the room. “ Come, children,” said she, “ you must keep the cream whirling or it will all be spoiled.” Jenny swallowed her wrath, seized the handle of the pail, and began whirling it in its chilly bed, punching down the snow and salt, meanwhile, with the dipper-han-dle.

“Well, Jenny,” said her brother, witha yawn, “ I see you are going to do all the rest, and so I’ll Just see how Lill gets along.” And off he went, turning back at the door to say that whenever they wanted any “ sampling” done he was ready to do it. “Sampling, indeed!” thought Jenny. “He just wants an excuse to taste it. I think I can do that myself.” Whirl, whirl went the pail, while Jenny looked at her red fingers and pondered. “ Say, mother,” she broke forth, suddenly, “ I couldn’t hold my fingers in the snow a minute; but Benny didn’t mind it at all. What makes the difference ?” “He is used to handling snow and ioe, and you are not; but I think even he would have found it pretty cold if the snow and salt had been well mixed.” Jenny meditated, all the while whirling her pail. “Salt isn’t cold,” said she, at length, “ and snow isn’t very cold, and I don't see what makes them so cold when they’re mixed.”

“ It’s the melting of the snow that produces the cold,” replied her mother. “ The melting of the snow?” Jenny was more puzzled than ever. Mrs. Brown smiled;but, seeing Jenny’s eagerness, she set about explaining it in earnest. “ What is cold ?” asked she. “ Cold ? Cold is—it’s—why, it’s where there isn’t any warmth.” “ You’ve hit it exactly. Cold is the absence of heat. Like the zero in arithmetic, the word is nothing in itself, but only shows the absence of something. Now, anything that will take away heat will produce cold! will it not?” “Yes’m.” “ Well, the snow must have heat in order to melt, and it takes it from whatever is most convenient, in this case from the cream, as it can draw it better through tin than through wood. After a while the cream will lose so much heat—that is, get so cold—that it will freeze.” Jenny jerked up the cover of the pail. “ Sure enough,” she cried, “it’s beginning to freeze now around the sides. And oh! mother,” snapping up a bit on the end of her spoon, “ it’s just splendid. But, mother,” she resumed, shutting the pail again, “ I can’t see what the salt has to do with it.”

“ Salt has a great liking for water. You know how quickly it will dissolve in it. And when the salt is mixed with snow' it seems to compel the snow to melt —that is, become water —in order that it may unite with it.” “ But does the heat really go into the snow to make it water?” __ '' “Yes, I think it’s correct to say that; though we mustn't think of heat as a substance or body; I’ll tell you how it might be proved. Heat is measured by the thermometer, We speak of degrees of heat, just as we speak of quarts of water or bushels of corn. Now suppose you were to put a pound of snow into a kettle and build a good fire underneath. The thermometer dipped into thesnow would show just thirty-two degrees of heat, but during every minute that the snow was melting a certain, number of degrees*of-heat would pass from the fire into the snow—say ten degrees; then it would take just fourteen minutes to melt the snow, and how r much heat would pass into the snow V” “Let me see. Ten times fourteen—a hundred and forty degree^-’’ “ Yes, but the thermometer dipped into the water just as the last snow' melts would still stand at thirty-two degrees.’’ “What has become of the heat, then?’’ It is all taken up its changing the snow to water. It doesn’t show by the thermometer, so the wise men call it 'latmt or hidden heat. Latent means hidden, 3'ou know. We are kure that that amount of heat has actually passed into the snow,

just as much fire the temperature will rise exactly 140 degrees in fourteen minutes. “ It doesn’t make any difference about the measuring. If you should put two quarts of water into a can you would know it was there, even though the neck should be so narrow that you couldn’t get your quart cup in to measure it.” I could turn it out and measure it.” “So you J* 11 * n this case.” * “ Oh, mother/” _ t . “Certainly you call, JJ thawing takes m heat, won’t freeMri* send n out again ? hen water freezes 8 jsvea up every de- *«*'«* heat » took up W ftawing?” .Well, then,” said Jenny, struggling with the novel idea, “I should thiflk we might boil water by it. Boil one dish of water by freezing-another! Just think of it!”

”It does sound odd; but it might be done, I'm sure. Part of the water would give it? extra heat to the other part. Just as if I wefe to give yon my shawl on a cold day, you would he warmer, I colder.” “ That’s why father carries water into the apple-cellar, to keep the apples from freezing. The writer will freeze first, and give out heat to make the cellar warmer for the apples/’ “ Right,” said Mrs. Brown. “ And can you tell why there’s such a chilliness in the air on a bright day in spring, when the sun shines and the snow melts fast ?” “Yes, the melting snow takes the warmth out of the air,” said Jenny, eagerly. « “ How’s the ice-cream?” cried Benny and Lill, coming noisily into the kitchen just then. “ let’s try ft.” I have not stopped to tell you of the many times Jenny had already tried it during the talk with her mother. Now, upon opening the pail, it was found frozen hard, and after they had all liberally “sampled” it, as Benny said, Mrs. Brown pronounced it “done,” and it was carried down-cellar, bucket, snow and ail, to wait the evening. Then Jenny tried to repeat what her mother told her and- got very much mixed up. Only one thing was plain,, she wanted to try the snow and salt again on Beamy’s hand. ‘“Barkis is willin’,’” said' Benny, stretching out his hand with the air of a martyr; “but you neadn’t think you’re going to make me scream.” Jenny spread a layer of dry snow ®n the back of his hand—” that’s the tenderest place” she said—then a layer of salt. Benny never winced. Another layer of snow and, salt.was added, while the girls looked eagerly in his face for signs off yielding. “Itpricks a little; that’s all,” said he. “Well, that is strange,” said Jenny. “ I couldn’t bear it a minute. Mother,, do come and see.” The moment Mrs. Brown looked at 1 Benny’s hand she noticed a peculiar whiteness spreading over it. “Why, Benny!” she cried, brushing away the snow and salt, “your hand! is freezing.” Sure enough, a large spot on his-hand was perfectly bloodless. “It can’t be frozen,” said he: “I haven’t been two feet from the stove.. Besides, it didn’t feel cold.” “It froze so quickly that you didn’t feel it; but it is surely frozen. Here; dip it in this cold water.” Benny obeyed, and as the blood gradually returned it began to sting and smart. It became purple and swollen and Jenny wanted to poultice it. But he declared he “ wouldn’t he such a baby;” so he braved it through, though the pain Was- quite severe for two or three days. They never tried that experiment again; but Mrs. Brown taught them another. In ai tell quart cup, filled half full of dry snow, they threw' half a teacupful of salt, then, turnihg a little water on the kitchen floor,they set the cup down in it, stirred the mixture, and waited for developments. First the cup became covered with frost, like the glass of a window one cold morning, and Lill wrote her name on it—a thing she wasn’t allowed to do on the windowpanes. The snow began to look damp and heavy. “See,” cried Jenny, “it is melting already, and drawing in heat from all around to help it turn to water.” She tapped the cup lightly with her fingers, she gave it a vigorous pull by the handle; but it did not move, ft was froeen fast to the floor. And, though there was a hot fire within two feet, it did not thaw up for hours. Indeed, I believe it was still there when the first comers of the party made their appearance;.hut I’m not sure. How long do you suppose you could make a cup stay frozen to the floor in your house?— N. T. Independent.