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210
The Fairy-Land of Science
·
Arabella B. Buckley
141
Now,
every
living
things
wants
carbon
to
feed
upon,
but
plants
cannot
take
it
in
by
itself,
because
carbon
is
solid
(the
blacklead
in
your
pencils
is
pure
carbon),
and
a
plant
cannot
eat,
it
can
only
drink-in
fluids
and
gases.
Here
the
little
green
cells
help
it
out
of
its
difficulty.
They
take
in
or
absorb
out
of
the
air
carbonic
acid
gas
which
we
have
given
out
of
our
mouths
and
then
by
the
help
of
the
sun-waves
they
tear
the
carbon
and
oxygen
apart.
Most
of
the
oxygen
they
throw
back
into
the
air
for
us
to
use,
but
the
carbon
they
keep.
If
you
will
take
some
fresh
laurel-leaves
and
put
them
into
a
tumbler
of
water
turned
upside-down
in
a
saucer
of
water,
and
set
the
tumbler
in
the
sunshine,
you
will
soon
see
little
bright
bubbles
rising
up
and
clinging
to
the
glass.
These
are
bubbles
of
oxygen
gas,
and
they
tell
you
that
they
have
been
set
free
by
the
green
cells
which
have
torn
from
them
the
carbon
of
the
carbonic
acid
in
the
water.
But
what
becomes
of
the
carbon?
And
what
use
is
made
of
the
water
which
we
have
kept
waiting
all
this
time
in
the
leaves?
Water,
you
already
know,
is
made
of
hydrogen
and
oxygen,
but
perhaps
you
will
be
surprised
when
I
tell
you
that
starch,
sugar,
and
oil,
which
we
get
from
plants,
are
nothing
more
than
hydrogen
and
oxygen
in
different
quantities
joined
to
carbon.
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