ALDTNl's INCOMBUSTIBLE DRESSES. 307 



wide, made by stretching the wire-gauze over a 

 slender frame of iron. All these pieces are made 

 of iron wire-gauze, having the interval between 

 its threads the twenty-fifth part of an inch. 



In order to prove the efficacy of this apparatus, 

 and inspire the firemen with confidence in its 

 protection, he showed them that a finger first 

 enveloped in asbestos, and then in a double case 

 of wire- gauze, might be held a long time in the 

 flame of a spirit-lamp or candle before the heat 

 became inconvenient. A fireman having his 

 hand within a double asbestos glove, and its palm 

 protected by a piece of asbestos cloth, seized 

 with impunity a large piece of red-hot iron, 

 carried it deliberately to the distance of 150 feet, 

 inflamed straw with it, and brought it back again 

 to the furnace. On other occasions the fireman 

 handled blazing wood and burning substances, 

 and walked during five minutes upon an iron 

 grating placed over flaming fagots. 



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 ; 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 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 brazier filled with flaming hay and wood, 

 as in Fig. 77, and resisted the action of the fire 

 during five or six minutes, and even ten minutes. 



In the experiments which were made at Paris 



