ALDINl's INCOMBUSTIBLE DRESSES. 



355 



handled blazing wood and burning substances, and walked 

 during five minutes upon an iron grating placed over 

 flaming faggots. 



In order to show how the head, eyes, and lungs, are 

 protected, the fireman put on the asbestos and wire-gauze 

 cap, and the cuirass, and held the shield before his breast. 

 A fire of shavings was then lighted, and kept burning in a 

 large raised chafing-dish, and the fireman plunged his 

 head into the middle of the flames with his face to the 

 fuel, and in that position went several times round the 



Fig. 72. 



chafing-dish for a period longer than a minute. In a 

 subsequent trial at Paris, a fireman placed his head in the 

 middle of a large brasier filled with flaming hay and 

 wood, as in Fig. 72, and resisted the action of the fire 

 during five or six minutes, and even ten minutes. 



In the experiments which were made at Paris in the 

 presence of a committee of the Academy of Sciences, two 



