It is the considered opinion of this house that no element merits a more reverent treatment than the sixth.
From the Latin carbo, signifying coal, the element passes through every form known to elegance — from the soot upon a parlor candle to the fire of a brilliant cut diamond, set in gold and worn at the throat of a duchess. The pages following inventory the principal forms in which carbon arrives upon our shelves, accompanied by such notes as the editor has felt obliged to provide.
“Of all the elements, this one alone may be at once a fuel, a jewel, a writing instrument, and the very breath of the planet.”
Carbon, when laid down under terrible patience and pressure, becomes the diamond — a gem of incomparable hardness and prismatic light. The cubic lattice in which each atom is fixed to four neighbours produces the singular optical character that has been the cause of more poetry, and rather more crime, than any other crystalline arrangement.
- Lattice
- Cubic, tetrahedrally bonded
- Hardness (Mohs)
- 10, the maximum
- Refractive index
- 2.418, the source of fire
- Specimens in stock
- By private appointment only
“The diamond is carbon at the height of its theatrical career.”
The same atom, given a different invitation, lies down in flat hexagonal sheets and becomes graphite — soft, dark, and accommodating to the pencil. The slim weight of a sentence, the engineer's drawing, the schoolchild's first multiplication, all rest upon this less glamorous but immeasurably more useful allotrope.
- Lattice
- Hexagonal layers, weak inter-layer bonds
- Hardness (Mohs)
- 1 to 2, exquisitely soft
- Conductivity
- Substantial, in plane
- Common applications
- Pencils, electrodes, lubricants, the literary art
Set carbon among hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, and there follows the entire bewildering province of organic chemistry — sugars, oils, perfumes, dyes, pharmaceuticals, vintages of wine. Every leaf, every loaf, every velvet glove begins as a chain of these atoms, joined hand to hand, end to end.
- No. 401Methane — the simplestCH4, of marshes and gas-lamps
- No. 402Ethanol — the conviviallestC2H5OH, of cellars and salons
- No. 403Cellulose — the most useful(C6H10O5)n, of paper, linen, and the foundations of polite society
- No. 404Caffeine — the most consultedC8H10N4O2, of correspondence and crisis
And, finally, in its most vaporous incarnation, carbon is the breath of the world — circulating between leaf and lung, between ocean and sky, the great commerce of the planet conducted in the smallest of denominations. The economy here is older than any house of trade and continues to operate without interruption.
“The carbon cycle is the longest-running concern in the natural ledger.”
Set in Courier Prime, Crimson Text, and Playfair Display. Bound in parchment and mahogany. Aurora plates produced from prismatic study of unblemished diamond specimens at sunrise.
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