He was carrying some alcohol across a lawn.

He accidentally spilled some upon the grass.

The next day he found the grass as dead and brown as though it had been scorched by fire.
~23.~ Mr.Darwin, the great naturalist, once made a curious experiment.
He took a little plant with three healthy green leaves, and shut it up under a glass jar where there was a tea-spoonful of alcohol.

The alcohol was in a dish by itself, so it did not touch the plant; but the vapor of the alcohol mixed with the air in the jar so that the plant had to breathe it.

In less than half an hour he took the plant out.