o be 1006 or higher--water
being 1000. A number of small clean empty flasks, of the shape shown
on the margin, are before us. One of them is slightly warmed with a
spirit-lamp, and its open end is then dipped into the turnip infusion.
The warmed glass is afterwards chilled, the air within the flasks
cools, contracts, and is followed in its contraction by the infusion.
Thus we get a small quantity of liquid into the flask. We now heat
this liquid carefully. Steam is produced, which issues from the open
neck, carrying the air of the flask along with it. After a few
seconds' ebullition, the open neck is again Plunged into the infusion.
The steam within the flask condenses, the liquid enters to supply its
place, and in this way we fill our little flask to about four-fifths
of its volume. This description is typical; we may thus fill a
thousand flasks with a thousand different infusions.

I now ask my friend to notice a trough made of sheet copper, with two
rows of handy little Bunsen burners underneath it. This trough, or
bath, is nearly filled with oil; a piece of thin plank constitutes a
kind of lid for the oil-bath. The wood is perforated with circular
apertures wide enough to allow our small flask to pass through and
plunge itself in the oil, which has been heated, say, to 250 deg. Fahr.
Clasped all round by the hot liquid, the infusion in the flask rises
to its boiling point, which is not sensibly over 212 deg. Fahr. Steam
issues from the open neck of the flask, and the boiling is continued
for five minutes. With a pair of small brass tongs, an assistant now
seizes the neck near its junction with the flask, and partially lifts
the latter out of the oil. The steam does not cease to issue, but its
violence is abated. With a second pair of tongs held in one hand, the
neck of the flask is seized close to its open end, while with the
other hand a Bunsen's flame or an ordinary spirit flame is brought
under the middle of the neck. The glass reddens, whitens, softens,
and as it is gently drawn out the neck diminishes in diameter, until
the canal is completely blocked up. The tongs with the fragment of
severed neck being withdrawn, the flask, with its contents diminished
by evaporation, is lifted from the oil-bath perfectly sealed
hermetically.

Sixty such flasks filled, boiled, and sealed in the manner described,
and containing strong infusions of beef, mutton, turnip, and cucumber,
are carefully packed in sawd