On Spontaneous Combustion. _ 147 
On Monday night, 3d inst. the Aurora was again seen. It was 
less conspicuous than on the 2d. ‘The evening was showery, but 
at 9h. 45m. the clouds began to disperse. ‘The North was illumi- 
ned with’a faint light, now and then adorned with a solitary streamer. 
Observations were continued until near midnight, but no increase 
Was seen. 
The hours and minutes above given are of apparent time. 
A.C.C.E. J. 
Art. XV.—On Spontaneous Combustion; by James Mrasz, M.D. 
In my ‘‘ Archives of Useful Knowledge,” vol. iii. p. 167, I re- 
corded three cases of the spontaneous combustion of large masses of 
bituminous coal from Virginia, two in cellars, and a third under a 
close arch, all of which occurred in Philadelphia.* A fourth case 
was stated of one thousand two hundred chaldrons of coal “‘ in a close 
compact magazine”’ in Paris, and a fifth of one thousand six hundred 
tons of the same article in the royal ship-yard in Copenhagen and all 
consumed, together with one thousand four hundred houses. ‘This 
happened in the year 1794. 
Bituminous coal has on other occasions taken fire. In the year 
1822, October and November, three cases occurred of this, in. the 
navy yards of Brooklyn, New York, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 
and Washington city. ‘The coal was from Virginia, and lay exposed 
to the air and rain. 
In the year 1828, one hundred chaldrons of coal which had been 
placed several weeks before on wet ground in Boston, took fire, with 
a volume of sulphurous matter rising in a state of ebullition. It was 
remarked that this was the third instance of the kind within the past 
year in that city. 
Another case was mentioned in the newspapers as having taken 
place in Ridgley’s coal-yard, Baltimore, some years since, in the 
* This last was from Dr. Seybert’s paper on Spontaneous Combustion, in New 
York Medical Repository, Hexade 3d, vol. iii. Two similar facts are given by 
Bartholdi, Annales de Chimie, No. 144: and translated in Tilloch’s Philos. Mag. 
vol. XVill. 
+ In my additions to the article “Inflammation,” in Willich’s Domestic Encyc., 
I have given nine cases of spontaneous combustion from various causes. 
