M. P. H. Boutigny on the Spheroidal State of Bodies, Sfc. 61 



which I had read in various works* on the fiery ordeal and 

 incombustible men, admitted without reserve by some, obs- 

 tinately denied by others, excited my curiosity greatly, and 

 gave me a great desire to verify all these phaenomena, and to 

 recall them to the recollection of contemporary observers ; for, 

 alas ! all this is as old as the world ; nil sub sole novum. 



I wrote first to my friend Dr. Roche, who passes his life in 

 the midst of the blast furnaces of the Eure, and who is the 

 physician of a portion of the Cyclopean population who feed 

 them. I requested of him precise particulars. All that he 

 could ascertain was, that a man named La Forge, of from 

 thirty-five to thirty-six years of age, very corpulent, walked 

 step by step barefooted on the pigs after the casting : but he 

 had not seen this. This was not enough to dispel my doubts. 



I then applied to a foundry at Paris, where I was laughed 

 at and shown the door. I retired, hanging down my ears, 

 thinking over the difficulties of verifying a single fact, and 

 such a simple one. 



Subsequently I was fortunate enough to meet with M. Alph. 

 Michel, who lives in the midst of the forges of Franche-Comte. 

 M. Michel promised me, with the greatest kindness, to inquire 

 into these facts, and to report upon them if desired. 



The following is an extract from the letter which he did me 

 the honour to write to me, dated the 26th of last March : — 



" On my return home, I did not fail to obtain information 

 from the workmen of the facts of the case (the immersion of 

 the finger in the incandescent melted metal), and most of them 

 laughed in my face, which did not deter me. Lastly, being 

 one day at the forge of Magny, near Lure, I put the question 

 again to a workman, who answered that nothing was more 

 simple ; and, to prove it, at the moment when the metal in a 

 state of fusion issued from a Wilkinson, he passed his finger 

 into the incandescent jet. A person employed in the esta- 

 blishment repeated the experiment with impunity : and I 

 myself, emboldened by what I saw, did the same ... I may 

 observe, that, in making this trial, none of us moistened his 

 finger. 



" I hasten, Sir, to acquaint you with this fact, which seems 

 to support your ideas on the globular state of liquids ; for the 

 fingers being naturally more or less humid, it is, I think, to 

 this moisture passing to the spheroidal state, that we must 

 ascribe their momentary incombustibility." 



The following are the experiments which I have made : — 



I divided or cut with my hand a jet of melted metal of five 



* Des Erreurs et des Pr4jug4s r^pandtis dans let diversea classes de la 

 Soci^te, t. xii. p. 183. 



