Spheroidal State of Bodies—Proof by Fire. 107 
The following is an extract from a letter which he wrote 
to me on the 26th of March last: “ On my return I did not 
fail to inquire among the workmen what truth there was in 
the statement (as to the immersion of the finger in red-hot 
melted iron), and generally I was laughed at, but that did 
not deter me. At last, when at the foundry of Magny, near 
Lure, I again put the question to a workman, who replied 
that nothing was more simple ; and, in order to prove it, at 
the moment when a mass of melted metal was pouring out 
from a Wilkinson, he thrust his finger into the burning jet; 
another individual in the same employment repeated the 
experiment with impunity ; and I myself, emboldened by 
what I had seen, did the same thing. I must observe that, 
in making this trial, none of us moistened the finger.” 
“T hasten, Sir, to make you acquainted 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 conceive, owing to this humidity passing into a 
spheroidal state, that we must ascribe the momentary incom- 
bustibility.” 
I entirely adopt M. Michel’s opinion, and shall afterwards 
give the theory of it. To my own mind the fact was no 
longer doubtful ; but still I could not allow myself to com- 
municate it to the Academy, making it an invariable rule to 
submit nothing to its judgment but facts which I have often 
witnessed de visu. 
I again made application to different foundries; but they, 
unfortunately, had not been working for a long time. 
I despaired of finding an opportunity of verifying this fact, 
so curious in appearance, yet so simple in reality, when a 
particular circumstance brought me into daily connection with 
forges and foundries, which enabled me to experiment as I 
pleased on the red-hot burning metal. 
The following are the experiments I made :— 
I divided or cut asunder with my hand a jet of melted 
metal of five or six centimetres in diameter, which was es- 
caping from the outlet; then, at the same moment, plunged 
the other hand into a reservoir full of the incandescent 
metal, which was truly fearful to look at. I trembled in- 
