Protection of Persons from Fire. 113 



NOTES. 



JYote, referring to the Introduction. — The practice of burning the 

 bodies of the Roman emperors, enveloped in sheets of asbestos, was 

 not, according to the author, so common as Phny insinuates. They 

 were burned in an enclosure of refractory stone, without any extra- 

 ordinary precaution to prevent the ashes of the wood from mingling 

 with those of the body. Suetonius, and other historians that have 

 described the funeral of Augustus, Trajan, Severus, and other em- 

 perors, make no mention of amianthus, though its use had been then 

 long known, as is attested by Strabo, Dioscorides and others. 



Clement XI. presented to the Vatican library a magnificent urn of 

 marble, which contained a winding sheet of amianthus, enclosing ash- 

 es and a cranium. This fine relic was discovered outside the JVevia 

 gate in 1702. It is the only one hitherto found in the tombs of 

 persons of distinguished rank. The tissue of this cloth is rather 

 close, and the threads very coarse. The urn signified that it con- 

 tained the head of a king or an emperor. The piece of cloth is 

 nine palms long and seven wide. M. Aldini has made some as 

 large, 



JVote, after Chap. VI. — The report of Gay-Lussac on the exper- 

 iments of M. Aldini, and the observations contained in the Acts of the 

 Milan Institute, perfectly agree in relation to the respiration of the 

 firemen while in the midst of the flames. The author having, be- 

 fore he left Italy, made a head covering, consisting of a piece of 

 cloth and a cap of wire gauze, found that it rendered the respiration 

 painful, and he afterwards followed the advice of his friend Scarpa, 

 and left an empty space for air between the envelope and the head. 

 It is essential that the air in contact with the flames should not enter 

 the lungs, not only because it is deprived of oxygen, according to the 

 observation of Gay-Lussac, but because the temperature is in equi- 

 librium with that of the flames, and consequently at its maximum. 

 But in the midst of these whirlwinds of flame, in appearance so 

 threatening, the fireman introduces air which has not lost its oxygen, 

 and whose heat is still far below that of the flames, and this serves 

 for respiration. The buckler opens a wide space for the column of 

 wholesome air which precedes the man, and lowers around him the 

 temperature of the medium in which he is plunging. Respiration is 

 really in danger, only when he remains motionless, which cannot con- 



Vol. XX.— No. 1. 15 



