Q. What is sandal wood?

A. The wood of a tree which grows on the coast of Malabar and in the Indian Archipelago. When the sandal tree becomes old, the harder central wood acquires a yellow colour and a strong perfume, while the softer exterior wood remains white and is without any perfume.

Q. What is iron wood?

A. A wood of a reddish colour, so called because it corrodes, as iron does, and is also very hard and heavy.

Q. Where does the tree which produces it grow?

A. It grows in the West Indies, South America, and some parts of Asia. Q. What is salt?

A. A substance which has been known and used as a seasoner and preserver of food from the earliest ages.

Q. Whence is it obtained?

A. From the waters of the ocean and salt springs, by means of evaporation, and also from salt mines.

Q. What is coal?

A. An inflammable substance found in the earth. England is remarkable for its coal mines.

Q. What is coal gas?

A. It is an inflammable gas, obtained from coal by burning it in a close place. As the gas escapes from the coal it passes through pipes to a receptacle for it, called a gasometer.

Q. What is coal gas used for?

A. For lighting houses and streets, and for filling balloons.

Q. What is coke?

A. The substance which remains after the coal has been deprived of its gas. Q. What is charcoal?

A. The substance obtained by burning wood with as little exposure to the air as possible.

Q. What is wool?

A. The fleecy coat of the sheep, which forms a most essential material for clothing in cold and temperate climates. Q. What is linen ?

A. Linen is made of the fibres of flax,

which is a plant found within Britain, and cultivated in Scotland and Ireland, and many countries in the north of Europe.

Q. What is cambric?

A. It is a species of very fine white linen, first made at Cambray, in French Flanders, from which place it derives its name. It is now produced of an equally good quality in Great Britain.

Q. What is cotton ?

A. A soft, downy substance, resembling fine wool, and growing in the pods of the cotton plant.

Q. What is silk?

A. A thread formed of several finer threads, which the silkworm draws from its bowels, like the web of a spider, and with which it envelopes itself, forming what is called a cocoon.

Q. What is paper?

A. A thin and flexible substance, used for writing and printing upon, and for other purposes. It is made chiefly of linen rags, which, after being sorted and cleansed, are reduced to a pulp by

means of water and grinding. The pulp then passes through a frame, and is formed into paper.

Q. What is leather?

A. Leather is prepared from the skins of animals, by first taking off the hair and grease, and then steeping the skins for many weeks in tan-pits, containing a strong infusion of oak bark.

Q. What is parchment?

A. The skin of sheep or goats, prepared and rendered fit for writing on. This is done by separating all the flesh and hair, rubbing the skin with pumice-stone, and paring it with a sharp instrument till it becomes of a proper thinness. Q. What is vellum?

A. A finer kind of parchment, made of the skin of sucking calves.

Q. What is whalebone?

A. An elastic horny substance which adheres in thin parallel plates to the upper jaw of the whale.

Q. What is glass?

A. A transparent, brittle body, formed by mixing fine sand or pounded flint

with soda, potash, or pearlash, and subjecting the mixture to a strong heat, in which state it may be shaped in every possible way. When cool, it becomes brittle.

Q. What is earthenware?

A. It comprises every sort of household utensil, made of clay and hardened in the fire.

Q. What is porcelain ?

A. Porcelain, or china, is the finest species of earthenware, and is semitransparent. It was originally manufactured in China and Japan, but it is now made in several European countries.

Q. What is malt?

A. Malt is a substance made chiefly from barley.

Q. How is it made?

A. Barley is soaked in very pure water for two or three days, and the water being at the end of that time drained off, the grain is then placed in a heap, when it gradually heats of itself, swells, bursts, sweetens, and begins to sprout.