“In the same manner,” continued Mr. Holiday, “a bare wooden floor feels colder than one with a carpet upon it. Now, in the case of a bare floor, it is vegetable fibre which conveys away the heat, and in the carpet, if it is a woollen carpet, it is animal fibre. But a stone floor would feel colder than a wooden one.”
“A painted floor is very cold,” said Rollo’s mother.
“Yes,” said Mr. Holiday; “paint is made of some metallic preparation generally, which is a better conductor than wood. All the metals are much better conductors than wood. That is the reason why they have wooden handles to tea-pots and other such vessels, because a handle of metal would conduct so much heat from the hot water to the hand, that we could not hold it.”
“Yes, sir,” said Rollo; “and the handle to the little tea-kettle at the tavern was a wooden one. I did not know what it was for.”
“It was to keep the heat from coming to your hand when you pour out the water. If the handle had been of copper, it would have been necessary to have a non-conductor to put around it, to keep the heat from coming out of the handle.”
“I never heard of such a thing,” said Rollo.
“Haven’t you?” said his father. “They make them sometimes, and it is a very ingenious contrivance.”
“They make them of some substance formed of animal fibre,” said his father, “because that makes the best non-conductor. The article, when ready, can be put upon any handle which is likely to get hot, and, being a non-conductor, it stops the heat from coming from the handle to your hand. You can take up any hot thing by means of it,—unless it is hot enough to burn the animal fibre of which the non-conductor is composed.”
“I wish that I could see one,” said Rollo.
“Well,” said his father, “you can, when you get home. Dorothy has got one, I dare say.”
“Yes,” said his father. “She calls it a _holder_.”
“O, a holder,” said Rollo. “I did not know you meant a holder.”
“Why, a holder is a non-conductor made of animal fibre, and intended only to stop the passage of the heat from the iron handle to your hand.”
“I thought it was only to keep our hands from touching the handle.”
“No,” said his father, “for an iron holder would do that; but an iron holder would soon get hot, and be of no use. That is, an iron holder would allow the heat to pass across very soon to your hand. It must be a non-conducting holder.