The History of a Mouthful of Bread by Jean Macé (great novels to read txt) 📕

alert, for we are now entering into a region where everything will be new to you.

Here we are at the charcoal market, I said to you just now, and no doubt you concluded that I was beginning another comparison.

But no such thing; there is no question of comparison or simile here; I state the fact itself, pure and simple as it stands: it is a
market, for commercial intercourse and exchange are carried on there, as I told you before, and it is a charcoal market, because charcoal is, positively, the essential and chief article of commerce.

You are astonished, I dare say, and are ready to ask me whether I can possibly mean real charcoal, charcoal such as the cook puts into the furnace. Surely, say you, we have nothing like that in our bodies? Surely we don't eat that ?

But I answer yes; real, true charcoal, and you do not dislike it; you eat of it even daily; nay, you do not swallow a single mouthful of food which does not contain its proportion of charcoal.

You laugh; but wait a little and listen.

When you are toasting a slice of bread for breakfast, and hold it too near the fire, what happens to it?

It turns quite black, does it not?

When mutton-chops are left too long unturned on the gridiron, what happens to them?

They turn quite black also.

When your brother forgets the apples which he has set to roast, what happens to them?

They turn quite black, as you have seen more than once.

It is always black, then, that these things turn, is it not? and a fine rich charcoaly black, as you may see if you please to observe charcoal closely, for just such is the color of little burnt cakes, over-roasted chestnuts, and potatoes in their skins, which have been dropped into the fire.

But there is a common term by which we can express more accurately the misfortune which has befallen all these various things-slices of bread, mutton-chops, apples, cakes, chestnuts, potatoes, and what-not, when "burnt," "over-toasted," "over-roasted," or "over-baked." We may call them carbonized , or more simply charred or charcoaled ; though the word charred is generally used only for burnt wood . But carbon being the principal ingredient of charcoal , and charcoal being one of the purer forms in which we get at carbon , they are almost synonymous terms, and you may call your burnt food carbonized , or
charred , or charcoaled , whichever you prefer.

The next question is, how did charcoal or carbon get into the food so as to justify our talking of its being carbonized or charred ? Even when we use charcoal stoves for cooking, the charcoal does not jump out and get into the mutton-chops, etc., you may be sure. Then it is clear it must have been in them before they were brought to the fire to be cooked; and such is indeed the case, only its black face escaped notice because it was in such gay-looking company, and kept itself hid behind the others like a needle lost in a match-box. Set fire to the matches, and you will soon have nothing left but the needle, which will then strike your eye at once. And so with our burnt food; the fire has carried off all the other ingredients, and the charcoal is left behind alone, exposed to everybody's view, as if on purpose to teach them that it was always there; in the apples, i.e., the potatoes, mutton-chops, etc., which seemed so tempting when the black rogue was hid, but from which now, when he is there by himself, they turn away in disgust.

Charcoal is, in fact, a much more generally distributed substance than you have been used to suppose, dear child. That which comes from burnt wood is most easily observed, because there is a much larger proportion of charcoal in wood than anywhere else; but there is not a morsel, however small, of any animal or vegetable whatsoever, which does not contain charcoal. In the sugar which you crunch, in the wine which you drink, there is charcoal. I could even find some in the water you wash in if I were to try hard. There is charcoal in the goose-quill which I hold in my hand at this moment, and in the paper on which I am writing, and in the handkerchief on my knee. If I hold them all three in the light of my wax taper, I shall soon see them turn black and betray the presence of our friend. It exists in the wax taper itself, as also in the candle, as also in the oil lamp. If I were to hold a piece of flat glass above their flame, I should collect enough of it to blacken the tip of anybody's nose who presumed to doubt the fact. There is a portion of it in the air; a portion of it in the earth. Where is it not? In short, all the stones of all the buildings in the world are filled with it from top to bottom. Charcoal, under his more scientific and important name of carbon, may be called one of the great lords of the world. His domain is so extensive that one might go round the world without getting out of it; he is even worse than the Marquis of Carabas.

After this you will never, I hope, want to persuade me you do not eatcharcoal; for, indeed, you would be puzzled to escape doing so. Of all the things you see on the dinner-table there is but one in which you will not find it-viz., the salt-cellar; and even while saying this, I mean only, in the salt itself, for as to the salt-cellar, clear and transparent as its glass may be, there is charcoal in it!

Our bodies, therefore, are full of charcoal. Everything that we eat supplies them with enormous quantities of it, which take up their quarters in every corner of our organs. It is one of the principal materials of the vast collection of structures of which I spoke to you in the early part of these letters, and of which the blood, the steward of the body, is the universal master-builder. If you remember, I told you then that these structures fell to pieces of themselves, in proportion as the workmen went on building, and that the blood, which brings fresh materials on its arrival from the lungs and heart, carries away the refuse ones on its return. And, of all these refuse materials, old charcoal is one of those which takes up the most room, as fresh charcoal took up a great deal of room in the new materials. The blood, as he goes back again, has his pockets quite crammed with it, and if he did not try hard to get rid of it as fast as possible, he would be disabled from being of any further use.

Now it is in the lungs that he clears himself of it. He gives it up to the air, which has need of it for a very interesting operation, of which I shall tell you more by and bye; and in return the air gives him something which is quite indispensable to him, for without it he would not dare to return to the organs, as his authority would no longer be recognised.

In the same way, the charcoal-seller goes to market with his charcoal and receives silver in exchange.

If he were to go home without money his wife would receive him with abuse.

But what is the indispensable thing which the blood obtains in his marketing?

Remember its name well: it is OXYGEN.

And we must speak of it with respect, for we are talking here of a very great and powerful personage, very superior even to CARBON. If CARBON be one of the great lords of the world, OXYGEN is its king.

There is a certain substance, my dear child, of which many people, especially little girls, do not even know the name, but which yet constitutes of itself alone a good half of everything we are acquainted with in the world. And this substance is the very thing I have just named to you. It is OXYGEN.

Ascend into the air as high as you can go, viz., to forty miles or so from the ground, as we said before; oxygen forms the fifth part of that vast aerial ocean which surrounds the globe on every side. There it is free-is itself -if I may use the expression; it is in the condition of gas ; that is to say, it eludes our sight, though there is no difficulty in ascertaining its presence, when one knows how to set about it.

Go down into the depths of the sea. People think they have good reasons for believing this to be two and a half miles deep on an average, which would give a pretty little sum total of tons for its whole weight, as you will be convinced, if you take the trouble of observing the space it covers on a map of the world;-to say nothing of lakes, rivers, streams, the water in the clouds, the water scattered throughout the interior or on the surface of continents, including that with which you wash your face every morning.

Oxygen enters in the proportion of eight-ninths into the composition of this incalculable mass. Eight-ninths , you understand, which is very near being the whole nine; in every nine pounds of water there are eight pounds of oxygen, the remainder being left for another substance, of which we shall have occasion to speak presently, and which is called hydrogen .

The earth on which you tread is full of oxygen. So far as we have penetrated hitherto into the interior of the globe, we have found king Oxygen everywhere: hidden under a thousand forms, connected with a heap of substances, not one of which could exist without him; imprisoned in a thousand combinations, and always ready to resume his natural condition if his prison-house be destroyed. The whole surface of the earth, plains, hills, mountains, towns, deserts, cultivated fields, everything you would look down upon, if on a clear day you could be carried high enough in a balloon to take in the whole earth at a glance:-all that may be considered as an immense reservoir of oxygen, out of which we should see it escaping in gigantic waves, if some superhuman chemist were to take it into his head to put our poor little globe into a retort of the same kind as chemists use among us. To give you an example; the stones of our fine buildings, in which we have already discovered the presence of carbon , are almost half made up of oxygen . In a stone which weighs 100 lbs. there are 48 lbs. of oxygen, and the first chemist who passes by could make them come out of it if he chose, if he were to use a little trouble and skill.

I enumerated to you last time many of the substances in which carbon is to be found; but as regards oxygen we must give up all attempt at making a list; it would comprehend the whole dictionary. Touch whatever lies under your hand-in your room-in the house-wherever you may go-I will almost defy you to put your finger upon