32

CRYSTALLIZATION.

WHILE Harry had been learning what is meant by the balance of an account, Lucy had been learning something, equally interesting to her, concerning sugar-plums, and sugar-candy, from one of Mr. Watson's sisters who was well informed both in the practice and theory of confectionery. As soon as Harry came in, Lucy ran to him, to tell him what she was intent upon; and he was obliged, for the present, to keep his debtor and creditor accounts to himself.

"Harry, my dear! you know those little, tiny sugar-plums, which are no larger than the head of a minnikin pin."

"I think I know the sugar-plums you mean," said Harry; “but I do not know a minnikin pin, nor the size of its head."

"Then never mind," said Lucy; "I forgot that you, being a man, could not know minnikin pins as well as I do. But as to the sugar-plums, you saw some this very day at dinner on the top of the trifle."

"I remember," said Harry. "Well.”

"Well, my dear Harry, you can have no idea

what hard work it is to make those little comfits. Miss Watson was telling me how she made ginger candy; and afterwards I asked her if she could tell me, or show me, how those little sugar-plums are made. She said that she could not show me, for that she could not make them herself, not being able to bear the heat in which they must be made. She told me that the pan in which they are boiled must be set over a great fire, and that the sugar of which they are made must be stirred continually in that heat. A man with a longhandled shovel keeps stirring, stirring, stirring; and sometimes strong men faint in doing this."

Harry wondered that some way of stirring the sugar in these pans by machinery had not been contrived, and he was going to question Lucy farther upon the subject, but she was in a great hurry to go on to sugar-candy.

"Harry, do you know how sugar-candy is made? I will tell you, for I have just learned. When sugar is dissolved, it is poured into pots, across which sometimes thin rods, and sometimes threads, at a little distance from each other, are stretched. These moulds, and the liquid sugar in them, must all be covered up, and kept in a great heat, for a certain time, and nobody must disturb them. They are placed in a room, which is one great stove; care is taken that no wind should be admitted, for they say that the least disturbance

spoils the whole, and prevents the sugar from forming into those regular shaped crystals, which you have seen in sugar-candy. If the vessels are not disturbed, they form on the little rods I mentioned to you, or on the strings. I dare say you remember often finding strings in sugar-candy; and now we understand the use of them."

"But what do you mean by crystals?" said Harry. "Will you explain?"

"I remember I once thought," said Lucy, “that crystals meant only bits of that white substance which looks like glass. But Miss Watson has explained to me that there are crystals of various sorts and substances, of sugar for instance, and sugar-candy, and of I do not know how many kinds of salts; in short, of all substances that can be crystallized: those were her words, as well as I can remember."

Very likely," said Harry; "but still I do not know exactly what is meant by what you call. crystallizing."

"Turning into crystals," said Lucy. "What more would you have? Here is what they call a crystal of sugar-candy. Here are its regular sides crystals, you know, have always regular sides, and a regular number of them. Look at it, and touch it, and taste it if you will."

Harry looked, and touched, and tasted; but still not quite satisfied, he said, "I want to know

what difference there is in things before and after what you call crystallization."

"The difference in this thing is very plain," said Lucy. "Before it was crystallized it was syrup, that is, sugar and water; and now you see it has become solid."

"Very well, so far I understand," said Harry, "but how or why do fluids crystallize?"

Lucy did not know, she confessed, and was well satisfied to let the matter rest there for the present. Some time afterwards, she took notice of an ornament on the chimney-piece; a small basket, which looked as if it were composed of crystals of glass, or of white spar.

Miss Watson told her, that it was not made

either of glass or spar. “I made it,” said she.

"You made it! How could you make it?" said Lucy. "And of what is it made? It looks something like white sugar-candy; perhaps it is made in the same way; perhaps it is a sort of sugar-candy."

"The taste would soon decide that," said Harry. May I just try the experiment with the tip of my tongue?"

Miss Watson gave him leave to taste it; but she warned him that he might perhaps not like the taste.

"I guess what it is," said Harry. After having applied the tip of his tongue to one of the crys

tals, he added, “By the taste, I am sure it is. alum."

She

It was alum. Lucy had seen large pieces of alum; but none large enough to be hollowed out into a basket of such a size, and it would have been difficult to have carved it into such regular shapes. She recurred to her first idea of the resemblance to sugar-candy, and she continued to think that it was made by the same means. Miss Watson told her that she was so far right in her guess, that it was made in the same manner as sugar-candy, that is, by crystallization. showed her the whole process, which is very simple. In the first place, she put some water into an earthen pipkin, with as much alum as could be dissolved in that quantity of water. She boiled it till the alum was dissolved. By these means, she told Lucy, she had obtained a saturated solution of alum, that is, that as much of the alum had been dissolved as the water could hold. Then Miss Watson took a little wicker basket, and suspended it by its handle on a stick laid across the mouth of the pipkin; so that the basket, handle and all, was totally immersed in the dissolved alum. The basket did not touch the bottom of the pipkin. As it was very light, it would not have sunk in the water had not a little weight been put into it. The whole was then covered with a coarse cotton cloth, and put aside in a cool