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The WiZard is In
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Insane science projects — Think BIG
Sulphur - iron volcano.
http://www.lateralscience.co.uk/volcano/index.html
See letter to Michael Faraday at the bottom.
--------
Added refs:
Nicolas Lemery [1645-1715] Cours de chimie, Paris 179, 1730. Mellor 13, 387.
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65-Pound smoke bomb
Explosive Devices, Public Schools, and Lenient School Administrators: The June
8, 1994 Smoke Bomb Prank at Palo Alto's Gunn High School that Injured
Eighteen.
On June 8, 1994 the San Francisco Bay area was shocked to learn of the
explosion of a 65 pound smoke bomb on the campus of Palo Alto's Gunn High
School which resulted in ambulances being called to the school, treatment for 18
students and serious injuries for two high school women.
In this case the smoke bomb, which had been constructed by three senior men
as their graduation signature prank, was a mixture of sugar and fertilizer which
had been packed into a concrete container that had formerly housed a water
fountain on the Gunn High School Campus. The device failed to function as
planned and when it was ignited, instead of smoking, it spewed molten sugar
across the high school quad. The culprits had failed to appreciate the lessons of
endothermic chemical reactions taught in chemistry classes and did not realize
that the proportions for a "small" smoke bomb could not be replicated for a
"giant" smoke device because the heat generated by the larger quantity altered
the combustion process.
Unfortunately at the time the mixture was ignited, graduating seniors, who had
gathered in the quad to autograph yearbooks, were sprayed with hot, burning
sugar and fertilizer. Two senior women suffered burns that required significant
medical care, Catherine Meyer and Eleanor Lin. Sixteen others were treated and
released.
Extracted from an advertisement for San Jose attorney Richard Alexander.
http://consumerlawpage.com/article/explode.shtml
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Lead carbonate using horse dung
Thorpe's " A Dictionary of Applied Chemistry" - 1916
White lead, Ceram, Blanc de Plomb, Bleiuviss. The commercial article known
as white lead is essentially a basic lead carbonate, of the formula
2PbCO3-Pb(OH),, which is produced by the decomposition of a basic lead
acetate by means of carbon dioxide. The method of manufacture which
according to experience yields a white lead best adapted for the production of
paint, one of the chief uses of white lead in the arts, is a modification of the old
Dutch process.
The Dutch method consists in exposing thin sheets of metallic lead, rolled into
coils and placed in earthenware pots containing a small amount of vinegar, to
the combined action of the acetic acid contained in the vinegar, air, moisture,
and carbon dioxide; the carbon dioxide and the heat necessary to further the
corrosion of the lead being obtained by the fermentation of horse manure and
stable litter, in which the earthenware pots and their contents are embedded.
The 'blue' or metallic lead is gradually corroded and converted into white lead,
which after being separated from the unaltered metallic lead, is ground and
washed.
You can obtained the complete article from Google.com/books.
NB - There are several editions of Thorpe's. I doubt it makes
any difference which edition you consult.
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Make leather the old fashion way - Bating
Bating
Perhaps the most curious of all the processes involved in making leather is that
of bating. Little is known of it origin because it was a secret process, but it is at
least some centuries old. After the skins are taken from the lime liquors,
unhaired, scudded, and washed, they will contain lime in the form of carbonate
and in combination with the skin proteins. At this stage they are plump and
rubbery and tanners have experienced many difficulties due to putting the stock
directly into certain types of vegetable tan liquors when it was in this condition.
The object of bating it to prepare the unhaired skins for tanning and originally
consisted in keeping them in a warm infusion of the dung of dogs or fowls until all
plumpness had disappeared and the skins had become so soft as to retain the
impression of thumb and finger when pinched and sufficiently porous to permit
the passage of air under pressure. When hen of pigeon manure was used, the
process was called bating, and when dog dung was used, it was called puering,
but the tem bating is now applied to the process generally, regardless of the
material used. The difference in terminology naturally disappeared with the
advent of artificial bating materials.
A common method for treating light skins was to put them into a vat filled with a
liquor containing about 100 grams of dog dung per liter, kept at a temperature of
450o C. by means of steam. A paddle wheel kept the liquor and skins in motion.
During the action , the skins gradually lost plumpness acquired in the lime liquors
and became soft and raggy. The completion of the process was determined by
the attainment of a certain degree of flaccidity, which the workmen could judge
only after long experience. Hen or pigeon manure was sometimes used for light
skins, but was more commonly applied to heavy hides because it penetrates
more rapidly than dog dung, due apparently to the fact that it contains also the
urinary products, especially urea.
John Arthur Wilson
The Chemistry of Leather Manufacture
ACS Monograph Series
The Chemical Catalog Company
New York, 1923
---------
Alumed Calf Skins for Bookbinding
To alum them, put into a large vat three or four pails of dog’s turd (this dogs’ turd
is called alum) ; on this they fling a large pail of water to dilute it ; this done, the
workman goes into the vat, and with his wooden shoes, tramples it, filling the vat
half full of water. The “alumer”, on his part, pours water out of his boiler into this
vat, mixing it with the cold water, after which he flings in the skins, string them
and turning them for some moments with great sticks.
Morocco Leather
The river work finished, the skins are put into the “dogs’ confit, or mastering” ; for
every four dozens of skins they add one bucket of dogs’ excrement, containing
fourteen or fifteen quarts, which is worked up with their hands into a kind of pap
and well diluted. The skins are flung in, stirred and worked in the “mastering” for
some minutes, then turned and left to rest.
The Art of Tanning and Currying Leather, with an Account of all the Different
Processes made use of in Europe and Asia for Dying Leather Red and Yellow,
Collected and Published at the Expense of the Dublin Society, to which are
added Mr. Philippo’s Method of Dying the Turkey Leather as approved of by the
Society for the Encouragement of Arts, etc., and for which he had a reward of
£100, and their Gold Metal, for the Secret. Also the New Method of Tanning
invented by the late David Macbride, M.D., London. Reprinted for J. Nourse, on
the Strand, Bookseller to His Majesty. 1780.
In :—
Joseph Turney Wood
The Puering, Bating & Drenching of Skins
E. & F. N. Spon, Ltd. London, 1912
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Ammonium sulphate from urine
Geoffery Matin and William Barbour
Industrial Nitrogen Compounds and Explosives
D Appelton New York 1915
Ammonia and ammonium salts
(8) From Sewage and Urine.—A very rich source of ammonia is ordinary urine. 100,000 heads of population could produce per year about 6,000 tons of
NH4. If all the ammonia corresponding to London urine were collected, more than 60,000 tons of ammonium sulphate could be annually produced therefrom.
The method of collection of urine and its working up into ammoniacal compounds has been carried on at Paris and at Nancy. In 1909 France obtained
13,000 tons of ammonium sulphate therefrom, 10,000 being obtained in Paris alone. However, the collection and utilisation of animal excrement is so
nauseous and costly and dangerous a process, that the bulk of the enormous ammonium supplies producible from this source are run to waste.
The process consists in allowing the urine to ferment into ammonium carbonate. The clear liquor is distilled and the ammonia recovered as in gas
liquor.
For further details see Ketjen, Zeit. angew. Chem., 1891; 294; Butterfield and Watson, English Patent, 19,502/05; Taylor and Walker, U.S. Patent,
603,668; Young, English Patent, 3,562/82 ; Duncan, German Patents, 27,148, 28,436.
Here we have some progress , this being the only British City [Glasgow], as far as I know, in which the public urinals are utilized for the production
of ammonia.
ED. C. Stanford, Esq.
Inaugural Address by the Chairman, [The Society of Chemical Industry, Glasgow and West Scotland Section.]
The Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry. 3 [3] 149-156. 1884.
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Poudrette
Ask you fellow students to assist with your Poudrette project.
http://tinyurl.com/y6r9b27
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Make — Ferrocyanide of potassium
Ferrocyanide of potassium.
[Bet this didn't smell like roses down wind!]
Present mode of manufacture.— It consist in introducing dry nitrogenous animal
matter, such as horns, hoofs, woolen rags, leather, &c., into molten carbonate of
potash contained in a small, but very thick and heavy (15 cwt) cast-iron pot,
heated externally by a strong fire. The pot is provided with an iron agitator, which
is kept constantly in motion during the operation. The nitrogenous material is
introduced into the pot slowly, and in small quantities at a time. The carbon and
nitrogen combine together forming cyanogen, which in turn combines with the
potassium, forming, some authorities say, cyanide, others, ferrocyanide of
potassium.
The mouths of the pots are practically open to the air, and at each addition of
nitrogenous material a flame shoots forth carrying with it a large proportion of the
nitrogen. It is at this stage of the process that the chief waste of nitrogen takes
place.
Extracted from—
JB Readman, D.SC., F.R.S.E., F.C.S., Edinburgh
The Manufacture of Prussiate of Potash (Ferrocyanide of Potassium)
A paper read before the British Association, Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1889.
In:— The Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry
10:8 757-59. October 31, 1889.
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Polverone
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Quote: Originally posted by The WiZard is In  | Ferrocyanide of potassium.
[Bet this didn't smell like roses down wind!]
Present mode of manufacture.— It consist in introducing dry nitrogenous animal
matter, such as horns, hoofs, woolen rags, leather, &c., into molten carbonate of
potash contained in a small, but very thick and heavy (15 cwt) cast-iron pot,
heated externally by a strong fire.
|
I actually produced my first cyanide compounds in a very similar manner. I used dried blood, commonly sold as a fertilizer, in fused sodium hydroxide.
The frothing is considerable and the process is malodorous. Sadly, I discovered tidier methods before I had a chance to compare and contrast the odor
of pyrolyzed blood with that of hoofs or leather.
PGP Key and corresponding e-mail address
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| Quote: Originally posted by Polverone |
I actually produced my first cyanide compounds in a very similar manner. I used dried blood, commonly sold as a fertilizer, in fused sodium hydroxide.
The frothing is considerable and the process is malodorous. Sadly, I discovered tidier methods before I had a chance to compare and contrast the odor
of pyrolyzed blood with that of hoofs or leather. |
Ding!
Frank Hall Thorpe
Outlines of Industrial Chemistry
MacMillian Co. New York 1919
Potassium ferrocyanide, K4Fe(CN)6 - 3H20, also called yellow prussiate of
potash, is made by fusing together potassium carbonate, iron borings, and
nitrogenous organic matter of any kind (horn, hair, blood, wool waste, and
leather scraps).* The potash is fused in a shallow cast-iron pan, set in a
reverberatory furnace, and the organic matter, mixed with from 6 to 8 per cent of
iron borings, is stirred in, in small portions at a time, until about 1 1/4 parts of the
mixture for each part of potash have been added. The temperature must be kept
high enough to keep the mass perfectly liquid, but not hot enough to volatilize
the cyanogen salts. The reaction is violent at first, and when the liquid remains in
quiet fusion the process is ended, and the melt is ladled into iron pans to cool.
The mass, containing a number of substances (KCN, K2CO3, K2S, FeS, metallic
iron, carbon, etc.), is broken up into. lumps the size of an egg, and digested with
water at 85o C. for several hours. During this process reactions take place
between the potassium cyanide and iron sulphide, by which the ferrocyanide is
formed: -
6 KCN + FeS = K2S + K4Fe(CN)6.
. Liebig explained the reactions during the fusion as follows: part of the carbon
and nitrogen of the organic matter combine to form cyanogen (CN)2, while some
of the potash is reduced by the excess of carbon to metallic potassium, which at
once unites with the cyanogen to form potassium cyanide. The sulphur in the
organic matter combines with the iron, forming ferrous sulphide. Finally, on
lixiviating, the formation of the ferrocyanide takes place. The solution is evapo-
rated in iron pans by the waste heat of the furnace, and clarified while hot; on
cooling, the crude ferrocyanide crystallizes, and is purified by recrystallization.
The mother-liquors yield more impure salt on further evaporation.
* The organic refuse is sometimes partially charred in retorts, by which much
ammonia is driven off and saved. But the yield of ferrocyanide is then less, since
the nitrogen content of the char is small.
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Poison a fellow student
I have it on good authority that this is the favorite science
project at the Dr. Josef Mengele Memorial High School.
With a view of determining the exact proportion of carbon monoxide which, when
inhaled with atmospheric air. would prove fatal to man. U. Mosso has carried out
experiments in an iron chamber of 203 cubic feet capacity, lighted by a glass
window, hermetically closed by a door, and provided with inlets for the poisonous
gas. An experiment, in which the subject lost consciousness, and artificial
respiration and the use of compressed oxygen had to be resorted to, showed
that the proportion of carbon monoxide in air fatal to man is 1-233rd or 0.43 per cent.
Toxicity of Carbon Monoxide
J. Gas. Lighting, 1902, 82, [4602]. 1334
In:— The Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry
23 [21] 1465. December 15, 1902.
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The best way to attract the judges attention is with an—
project where the student can die.
Attachment: Chem Lecture Demostrations Accidents.txt (20kB)
This file has been downloaded 817 times
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an hydrogen air explosion
"The Luna Society* believed in argument and cooperation. They had long
discussions about why thunder rumbles and decided the best way to test their
various theories was by experiment. Boulton made a 5-foot-diameter balloon
from varnished paper, and they filled it with a terrifying mixture of air and
hydrogen ("inflammable air from iron"), They lit a fuse underneath, released the
balloon in to the night sky on a clam, clear evening and waited for the bang.
unfortunately, the fuse was rather long, and they all assumed it must have gone
out; so they to talk among themselves, when there was a colossal explosion, and
they all said, "There it goes!" and forgot to listen for the rumble! [James] Watt
was at home 3 miles away and wrote that the bang was "instantaneous and
lasted about one second." This seems self-contradictory, but in any case, the
experiment failed to produce a simple answer to the original question."
*The Luna Society started ca. 1765 was started by Erasmus Darwin (grandfather
of Charles D.), included among others; William Small teacher and mentor of
Thomas Jefferson, James Watt (who did not invent the steam engine), Joseph
Priestly, and potter Josiah Wedgwood, Darwin's other grandfather.
[Review] Essays on Science and Society
Adam Hart-Davis
James Watt and the Lunaticks of Birmingham
Science 292[5514]55-56 6 April 2001
————————
"Watt's third lucky break came in the shape of the new boring machine invented
by ironmaster John "Iron-mad" Wilkinson. Wilkinson was a splendid
larger-than-life character who wanted to make everything from iron. ….. in a
corner of his office he kept his own iron coffin, which he proudly showed off to
visitors. (This caused some trouble when he died, for his wooden coffin turned
out to be too big to fit in the iron one; so they had to bury him temporarily in the
garden while they cast another iron coffin. Then they dug him up, put his wooden
coffin in the new iron one, and found it would not fit in the hole in the rock. So
again they buried him temporarily, blasted a bigger hole, dug him up,
successfully buried him, and placed a large iron obelisk on the grave.
Unfortunately, the house changed hands a few years later, and the new owners
did not like this great 20-ton iron pillar in front of their sitting-room window; so
poor Iron-mad was dug up yet again and buried for the fourth time at Lindale in
the Lake District.)"
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A personal ozone generator
New or Improved Apparatus for the Production of Ozone by Means of
Phosphorus. C. R. Poulsen. Horsens, Denmark.
English Patent 14,862, August 17, 1892.
The phosphorus is held in a glass cup fixed at the end of glass rod and placed in
a 10 per cent. solution of sulphuric acid, which is contained in a wide-mouth
bottle provided with a glass cap, through which the free end of the glass rod
projects. A perforated glass or porcelain plate is fixed below the neck of the bottle
though which the ozone escapes, whilst the phosphours acid formed
simultaneously is kept back. The bottle is filled to about one-half its volume with
the dilute acid, to which a little potassium permanganate is added to oxidize the
phosphorus acid. The apparatus is designed for inhaling of ozone in cases of
tuberculosis and of the diseases of the chest.
The Journal of the Society of Chemistry Industry.
Volume XII No. 3. March 31, 1893.
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bquirky
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!!! inhaling ozone ?
whouldnt that hurt or sompthing ? 
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O3 is reported to be an irritant. Back when (I am being
punished by Hughes.Net so I cannot look it up) they
blew ozone into a London underground station or two.
Apparently there was a problem w/ passengers carrying
the odour on their clothing after the exited the stations.
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Ferment paper
FERMENT PAPER
UREA = Brown
Synonym Musculus’ Paper
Preparation : Ferment paper is prepared by filtering decomposing urine through
white filtering-paper, then washing the latter, and coloring it with turmeric.
Application : Ferment paper is applied for the detection of urea, with which it
yields a brown color, due to the decomposition of the urea induced by the
ferment In the paper, ammonium carbonate being one of the products of the
decomposition and affording the reaction with the turmeric.
--------------------------------
Alfred I. Cohn Ph. G.
Indicators and Test-Papers : Their Source, Preparation, Application and Tests for Sensitiveness
A Résumé of the Current Facts regarding the Action and Applications of the
Indicators and Test-papers which have been Proposed from Time to Time, and
are in Present Use in Chemical Manipulations with a Tabular Summary of the
Application of Indicators. Assigned for the Use of Chemists, Pharmacists, and
Students.
First Edition
First Thousand
John Wiley & Sons, New York. 1899
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psychokinetic
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Think big?
Well, start thinking big then.
Race you to the moon!
“If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found
the object of his search.
I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety per cent of his labor.”
-Tesla
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Buy a big beaker — extract polonium from pitchblende.
Radiotellurium. W[illy] Marckwald. Ber., 1905, 38, 591-594. (See this J., 1903, 49, 1146)
In:— The Journal of The Society of Chemical Industry. 5 [24] 252. March 15, 1905.
Working with a large quantity of crude tellurium, obtained from about 15 tons of
Joachimsthal pitchblende, the author-succeeding in preparing about 3 mgrms. of
radiotellurium, many times more active than the product prepared confirming the
view that radiotellurium is an individual radio-active substance, not identical with
Curie’s polonium. Doubtless, the latter product, like Geisel’s polonium, contains
radiotellurium, but is a mixture, not an individual substance.
[Shortly thereafter his cleaning lady inadvertently trashed da 3 mgrms.!!]
[More – Willey got an F on this lab as “radiotellurium” is in truth polonium
previously discovered by the Curie’s.]
---------
Physiological Action of the Radiation from Radium.
H. Becquerel and P. Curie.
Comptes. Rend. 132 [22], 1289-1291.
In - The Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry, 8 [20], 845. August, 1901.
The action of the radiation from radium on the skin, announced by Walkoff and by
Giesel, has been confirmed by M. and Mme. Curie, and by Becquerel. Preparations
of radium, carried next to the arm or in the waistcoat pocket for periods of two to
six hours, gave rise to inflammation increasing very gradually, but lasting many
days, and leaving after treatment and recovery, little permanent scars. The intensity
of the physiological action depends on the activity of the radium and the duration
of its application. When handling radium and its compounds the finger tips become
hard and painful ; the pain often remains long after the inflammation has disappeared.
One would think that Nobel Prize winners would know better!
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Dig a hole..........
Jules Vern
From Earth to the Moon — And a Trip Around it
Crest Books 1958
Willy Ley — About the Book
The first thought which comes into the mind of a modern reader who either
reads Jules Verne's story of the cannon shot to the moon for the first time or
else remembers it for some reason from earlier reading is this: "Could such a
shot actually be made?"
The reader who wonders about this is, probably without knowing it, in good and
famous company. Soon after the book was out, scientists in several
countries—mostly in France, Germany and Russia—began writing articles
about this question. Of course nothing much could be said at first except for
checking the statements in the alleged' letter from the Cambridge Observatory.
See pages 26-29. It is perfectly true that an artillery projectile, fired vertically
with a muzzle velocity of 12,000 yards per second, or 7 miles per second,
would hit the moon if it were not for air resistance. But there was not enough
information then as to what air resistance would do. There was, however, full
agreement on the fact that air resistance would ruin such an experiment.
Jules Verne was certain of this himself; his true beliefs are expressed in the
statement of Captain Nicholl on page 42. After the first World War, when much
more had become known about the science of shooting and the effects of air
resistance, the problem was discussed and calculated twice more, once by
Professor Hermann Oberth, a mathematician, and once by Baron Guido von
Pirquet, an engineer.
Both found something very surprising. Air resistance outside barrel is bad
enough but what would really ruin the experiment would be the air inside the
barrel, the air filling the space above the shell's nose to the muzzle of the gun.
This air, when shell starts moving, simply cannot get out of the way. Hence
ill be compressed by the moving shell. By being compressed it will be heated up
and the result will be that the shell would find itself sandwiched between two
columns of hot gases, the driving combustion gases from below and the
compressed hot air above. An aluminum shell as described by Verne would sim-
ply be vaporized in the barrel under these circumstances and nothing would
come out of it but a jet of hot combustion gases carrying some aluminum vapor
along.
While the scientists were investigating this problem they naturally asked
themselves how one could shoot to the moon with a cannon. Well, it could be
done. But the expense would be fantastic. The gun should be drilled into a very
high mountain, one that is about 20,000 feet high. This would take care of much
of the air resistance outside the barrel. The barrel itself would be pumped free of
air and covered with an airtight cover. The little air which is left in the barrel would
still be compressed by the moving shell and this cylinder of compressed air,
pushed by the shell, would lift off the cover of the barrel just before the shell itself
emerges. But in order to stand the forces acting upon it the shell should have no
larger diameter than about eight inches, should be about ten times as long as its
diameter and would have to be solid steel.
Needless to say that nothing alive inside such a shell would stay alive. We simply
have to accept the impossibility for the fun of the story.
There are a few other things which might be worth mentioning. "Stones Hill" in
Florida, where the gun is built, does not exist. What Jules Verne had in mind is
Stone Mountain near Atlanta, of which he had read. He did not make a mistake in
thinking that Stone Mountain is in Florida—although the residents of Atlanta like
to say that Stone Mountain was thrown by California to finish Florida and merely
fell short in Georgia—he just had it in mind as a model of what was needed for
story purposes.
The figures Verne gives for the distance to the moon on page 27 do not agree
with the modern ones—perigee 221, 463 miles; apogee 252,710 miles, mean
238,800 miles.
Michel Ardan, the readers might be amused to learn, was a real person. His
original name was Felix Tournachon and he was a Parisian journalist and
photographer, writing under the pen name of Nadar. "Aran" is, of course, an
anagram of Nadar and the real Nadar is mentioned in the story on page 124.
Jules Verne knew Tournachon-Nadar-Ardan well but had not told him that he
was using him as a fictional character and was a bit apprehensive about Nadar's
reaction after finding himself in the book. However, Nadar also took it in the spirit
of good fun and solemnly thanked Verne for having made him much prettier than
he really was.
The second moon of earth, described first on page 107, does not exist, as we
now know. But it was actually postulated by the astronomer Petit of Marseilles
just as the story says. Neither Petit nor Verne seem to have realized that a moon
of such size, revolving around the earth at the distance mentioned, would be
easily visible to the naked eye and would have been discovered by the ancient
Babylonians, if not earlier. Incidentally, a second mistake crept in at this point. If
there were a second moon 4 650 miles from the surface it would not go around
the earth in 3 hours and 20 minutes but would need about 43 hours.
Of course one could pick more mistakes in a story in story nearly a century old, but
there is no need to do so. However, I would like to know one thing: where did Jules
Verne ever see or hear of a flag of the United States with thirty-nine stars? When he
wrote the story the union had thirty-five states, or possibly thirty-six, since Nevada was
admitted on October 31, 1864. By the end of 1876 the flag could have had thirty-eight
stars since Nebraska and Colorado had been admitted in the meantime. At no time
could the flag have had thirty-nine stars, for the thirty-ninth state to be admitted was
North Dakota on November 2, 1889. But South Dakota was admitted on the same day,
Montana on November 8 and Washington State on November 11. The flag, in
theory, jumped from thirty-eight to forty-two stars. In reality most flags jumped
from thirty-six to forty-two. But none could have existed with thirty-nine.
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entropy51
Gone, but not forgotten
Posts: 1612
Registered: 30-5-2009
Member Is Offline
Mood: Fissile
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Spring unfolds into the midlands of Norway in a steadily beautiful tide bringing in its wake a carpet of flowers and shades of green matched in only a
handful of places around world.. This awakening, as natural as it is, can bring a gasp of appreciation from even the most ardent lover of nature.
Still, to many, this change seems to come almost overnight as the weather and prevailing winds shift and whirl in a maddening dance of awakening. I am
not certain that either the scientific or natural explanation of the seasonal changes in my homeland can ever do justice to this almost mystical
transition, but to a twelve year old boy, as I was in 1905, all I knew or cared about was that soon I would be on my way to my Grandfather’s farm.
Grandpa Bernt’s farm was located near Roken in Buskerud Provence. Ever since I can remember I had ‘returned to my ancestral home’ in late June
or early July as soon as school was done to help work on the family farm and to play inside the nearby woods. Every so often, if all went well, I had
the privilege of seeing or even meeting one of the local Trolls who inhabited the surrounding woodlands. My father, Julius Berntson,
had, on several occasions, admonished his father not to fill my head with the fantastic. I was being sent to the farm to learn how to work, not to be
fed on the myths and legends that so clouded my mind that I talked of little else for weeks when I returned. I do not think Grandpa paid much
attention to this request and to be fair father did encourage me to write the stories down so I could tell them at the festivals and perhaps win a
prize or two. His only advise was to make the Trolls ‘more stupid’ and even more simple.
"No one will believe a story about an intelligent Troll." He would say. "People like the stories where the humans trick the
trolls and steal their treasure. Those kind of tales will make you a great story teller."
I never did take that advise.
With Spring came a letter to my parents that almost crushed my chances of going to the farm before they started. In it, Grandpa asked my parents if
they would let me travel with him up to Trondheim on a business trip after the crops were planted and the other chores were done. He explained that
the neighbors and the Trolls would take care of the farm and the animals while he was gone. The House Troll, Maas,
was particularly anxious to see if he could keep the place going. He told them he planned to leave in late June or early July so he could be back to
prepare for the harvest.
My parents initial reaction was to refuse but a second letter arrived the very next day in which Grandpa argued that this would be a very educational
trip as well. With the newly created country, Grandpa said it would be inexcusable for them to prevent me from seeing the Nidaros Cathedral, the site
where the new king would be crowned if the referendum scheduled for this Autumn went as everyone expected it to. He reminded them that no King of
Norway could rule in peace without the people of Trondheim (or Trondelag) on his side, adding that if Prince Carl got his mandate I would be able to
say that I saw where he would accept the crown. It would be a ‘grand adventure’ that would give me a life time of memories. I do not know how he
knew to write what he did, but, in short, he gave them no choice but to agree. He even pointed out that the Prince and I shared the same name and that
alone was a good reason, even if I never met him or even saw him during the trip.
I was ecstatic- not because of the history and the new king and all, though that was okay- but the idea of traveling across the country with Grandpa
was a dream come true. I think I had my bag packed and ready at least three weeks before I was supposed to leave, but my enthusiasm was about crushed
when my father told me that this might be the last time I would be able to go to Grandpa’s. He explained that he and mother were thinking of
immigrating to America. Papa had heard that there was always work available for carpenters particularly in a city called Salt Lake. I had never heard
of that city and I insisted that I would be happy to let them go and that I would go and live with Grandpa and take over the farm when he was too old
to work it. All my parents said was that they would discuss it later. I started packing extra bags.
It was the longest three weeks of my life. The funny thing is that I cannot remember much of what happened except my dad and mom and I talking to some
man from America who spoke Norwegian poorly. When I boarded the train in Oslo I was so excited I forgot about all my problems, and as I waved goodbye
to my parents I had no idea what was in store for me.
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JohnWW
International Hazard
Posts: 2849
Registered: 27-7-2004
Location: New Zealand
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
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| Quote: Originally posted by entropy51 | Spring unfolds into the midlands of Norway in a steadily beautiful tide bringing in its wake a carpet of flowers and shades of green matched in only a
handful of places around world.. This awakening, as natural as it is, can bring a gasp of appreciation from even the most ardent lover of nature.
Still, to many, this change seems to come almost overnight as the weather and prevailing winds shift and whirl in a maddening dance of awakening. I am
not certain that either the scientific or natural explanation of the seasonal changes in my homeland can ever do justice to this almost mystical
transition, but to a twelve year old boy, as I was in 1905, all I knew or cared about was that soon I would be on my way to my Grandfather’s farm.
(cut) |
Were you REALLY born in 1893 in Norway, Entropy51? Are you REALLY now 116 or 117? If so, you should
contact the Guinness Book of Records, as you would come close to being the oldest man in the world. Are you a WW1 veteran?
Of course, it was in Norway that trolls were first invented or discovered. Legend has it that they have 7 heads and live underneath bridges, or
sometimes in caves in mountainous areas; but how would they have internet access there?.
BTW I have an internet friend in Stavanger, Norway. I must remember to ask him what he knows about Norwegian trolls, and whether he has ever seen one.
[Edited on 22-4-10 by JohnWW]
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entropy51
Gone, but not forgotten
Posts: 1612
Registered: 30-5-2009
Member Is Offline
Mood: Fissile
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| Quote: Originally posted by JohnWW | | Legend has it that they have 7 heads and live underneath bridges, or sometimes in caves in mountainous areas; but how would they have internet access
there?. |
The legend is that DARPA invented the internet. It was actually invented by the trolls, so that
they would have a wider audience.
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DJF90
International Hazard
Posts: 2266
Registered: 15-12-2007
Location: At the bench
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
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I doubt Entropy is really telling the tale from *his* perspective, but merely making a subtle point with black humour.
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The WiZard is In
International Hazard
Posts: 1617
Registered: 3-4-2010
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
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| Quote: Originally posted by entropy51 | Spring unfolds into the midlands of Norway in a steadily beautiful tide bringing in its wake a carpet of flowers and shades of green matched in only a
handful of places around world..
[snip]
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I am once again soooo confused, I thought this was this group
was Science - Madness.
I ran your missive through my ultafuge (Ultracentrifuge ) and after it spun-down what I found at the bottom
of the jar was a small slip of paper on which was written — damnant quod non intelligunt.
[Edited on 22-4-2010 by The WiZard is In]
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The WiZard is In
International Hazard
Posts: 1617
Registered: 3-4-2010
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
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determine why dead bodies smell of burnt gunpowder and vinegar
Take you GC-MS down to the Parthenon and determine why .....
All The Year Round A Weekly Journal
Conducted by Charles Dickens
London December 18, 1869
http://tinyurl.com/y8uuobj
TENANTS OF SAINT DENIS.
IN the completion of the difficult and delicate task of restoring the royal church of
St. Denis, will lie M. VIOLLET-LEDUC'S chief claim to consideration as an able and clever
architect. The undertaking was one demanding the greatest possible care, judgment,
and labour, and M. Viollet-Leduc has brought all these to bear, with a result that
leaves nothing to be desired. It was not merely a question of replacing displaced
tombs, raising fallen columns, and mending statues, but the notions of former
governments had evidently been very vague and indistinct on the subject of "
restoration," and those notions had all tended to spoil St. Denis rather than to
improve it, so that it has been now necessary to destroy much, before the work of
restoration could be begun. Yet it was this disfigured church that was the glory of the
sight-seers of the reigns of Louis the Eighteenth, Charles the Tenth, and Louis Philippe
! The lightness and elevation of its dome were vaunted by our fathers, yet its flooring
had been raised more than a yard above the ground, to avoid damp; its windows had
given place to mediaeval portraits of kings and abbes, whose likeness to the originals
was very doubtful; and its tombs had been removed into a dark, damp crypt, exposed
to the indiscretion of visitors. There were columns, statues, and busts—some among
them of persons who had never been buried at St . Denis—all unchronologically and
incorrectly arranged. The St. Denis of to-day presents a very different appearance,
even in its unfinished state.
The royal mausoleum stands before us, brilliant in renewed beauty and freshness,
and carries us back at once to the days of its past glory. With this difference, however
; that it is now less a mausoleum than a museum. M. Georges d'Heilly, in a very
interesting account lately published in Paris of the extraction of the royal coffins from
St. Denis in 1793, says: " Death no longer surrounds us when visiting St. Denis. The
tombs which once sheltered the bodies of our kings are empty, many of them re-
made, the ashes of Dagobert and Henry the Second thrown to the winds, and their
bones burnt in quick-lime. The fault, therefore, of this admirable restoration is, that
the royal church is no longer a church, nor a necropolis. It is simply a museum which
we visit, as we visit the Louvre, and the difference between the old tombs, painted
windows, and chapels of the past, and those of the present, which are the work of M.
Viollet-Leduc, is the difference which exists between an admirably executed copy and
an utterly lost original.
" On the 31st of July, 1793, at a sitting of the Convention, Barrere, in the name of
the Comite du Salut Public, read a paper in which he proposed that the anniversary
of the 10th of August—the day on which the throne had been levelled—should be
celebrated by the destruction of the royal tombs of St. Denis: the sumptuousness of
which, he argued, was vanity tending to the flattery and glory of monarchy. The
Convention unanimously gave assent to the proposition, and the work of destruction
commenced on the 6th, and finished on the 8th of August, to the end that on the
10th it might be publicly announced that a great and just act had been accomplished,
and that it only now remained to open the coffins and disperse the remains of the
royal tyrants, which would be effected as soon as circumstances permitted.
Accordingly, in the following October commenced the opening of the coffins—the first
being that of the great Turenne. The shape of his body was well preserved, and his
features were very little altered. He appeared like a dried mummy of a light shade of
bistre. A large opening was then made in the vault in which lay the Bourbon princes
and princesses, and the coffin of Henri the Fourth was discovered. His body was
perfectly preserved, and his face recognisable. At the moment of opening, an
enthusiastic soldier threw himself before the corps, and, after a long and silent
worship, drew his sword and cut off a lock of his beard, which he held to his own lip,
crying in loud tones, ' And I also am a French soldier! And I am henceforth sure of
conquering the enemies of France, and marching to victory.'
" On the same day, 14th of October, the other members of the House of Bourbon,
to the number of forty-seven, were taken out of their coffins. The body of Louis the
Thirteenth was whole, and surprisingly well preserved;' he was recognisable by his
moustache, called a la royale, which remained intact. The body of Louis the
Fourteenth was black as ink, and the skin shiny. The coffin of Louis the Fifteenth was
opened at the entrance to the pit, which had been dug ready for the reception of the
royal remains in the court-yard of the church where formerly stood the beautiful
chapel of the Valois. This chapel was destroyed in 1719, being unsafe; but some of its
finest remains, consisting of arched columns, are to be seen at the present day in the
Pare Monceaux. The body of the royal lover of the Du Barry was entire, and well
bandaged : the skin white, the nose violet; some portions of the trunk, red. It floated
in water formed by the dissolving of the sea salt in which it had lain. The bodies of
the other princes and princesses were in a state of liquid putrefaction, and gave forth
a black and thick vapour, the odour of which burnt vinegar and gunpowder hardly
dissipated. The intestines of the illustrious dead were placed in leaden vessels
attached to the iron trestles that supported the coffins, which were also of lead. The
whole was despatched to the melter's, after the contents had been emptied into the
pit.
" In the vault of Charles the Fifth, several members of his family had been buried.
In his coffin, besides some dried bones, were a crown and sceptre of gold, and a hand
of Justice beautifully carved in silver. In the coffin of Jeanne de Bourbon, his wife,
were the remains of a crown, a gold ring, a spindle in gilt wood half eaten away, and
some pointed shoes covered with gold and silver embroidery. Part of a crown and a
gilt sceptre were also found in the coffins of Charles the Seventh and his wife Marie
d'Anjou. The tomb of Henri the Second held nine coffins, containing the bones and
decomposed remains of the princes and princesses of his line. Louis the Tenth had no
coffin. His body had been simply placed in a stone hollowed into the form of a
trough, and lined with plates of lead. Bones, and part of a sceptre and brass crown,
were found in it, much rusted. Charles le Chauve had been placed in a similar
receptacle, as bad also Philippe-Auguste. In the coffin of the latter, nothing but dust
was found. The body of Louis the Eighth was enveloped in a leather sack, beside
which was part of a wooden sceptre, a diadem of gold tissue, and a satin cap.
Philippe le Bel was in a stone coffin—an entire skeleton; a gold ring was on one of his
fingers, and beside him lay a diadem of gold tissue, and a brass gilt sceptre. A statue
of Dagobert stood in front of his tomb, and this the workmen were obliged to break,
in order to get at the coffin. In the tomb was a wooden coffer two feet long,
containing the bones of Dagobert and of Nantilde, his wife. These remains were
wrapped in some silken stuff, and separated one from the other by a plank, dividing
the coffer in two. The head of the queen was missing; that of the king was complete,
even to the teeth. The skeleton of Duguesclin—buried by favour at St. Denis—was
found intact in a lead coffin, the head perfect and the bones wonderfully white. The
vault of Francois the First contained six coffins. All the bodies were in a state of liquid
putrefaction, and a sort of black water issued from the coffins during their carriage to
the pit. The body of Francois himself was of extraordinary stature and build. In the
coffin of Philippe le Long, was his complete skeleton, clothed in royal robes. On his
head was a gold crown, enriched by precious stones; his mantle was decorated with
gold and silver. After the completion of the ghastly work at St. Denis, the coma of
Madame Louise, daughter of Lonis the Fifteenth, was fetched from the Carmelite
convent, of which she was superior. Her body was in the dress of a Carmelite nun,
and in a state of putrefaction. It was taken to the cemetery of Valois, and thrown
with the rest into the fosse commune. On the 12th of October a grand ceremony and
procession took place, in order to transport the gold and treasure found at St. Denis,
with becoming dignity, to the Convention Nationale."
In this way Revolution scattered the treasured dust of kings !
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