556 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[June 15, i£ 



RESISTANCE OF FIRE. 



OUR organism naturally revolts at burns and scalds 

 with all the energy of a deep-seated instinct. Wild 

 animals are afraid of fire; and children, when once 

 burned, proverbially dread it. This horror of burning 

 makes people admire those who can defy it. A man is 

 a hero who can handle live coals or red-hot iron, who can 

 touch melting lead, or who can resist flames and boiling 

 oil. But to plunge the hand into molten metal has been 

 a feat known from the earliest times, Zoroaster, wishing 

 to confound his accusers, invited them to throw upon his 

 body molten bronze, which did him no harm. And in 

 our day, it is no uncommon thing for workmen to 

 plunge their hand into a basin of molten lead for a 

 piece of silver which a visitor throws in to try them. In 

 the foundries workers can be seen stopping with their 

 hand a jet of molten cast-iron rushing from the crucible. 

 Professor Heddle, of St. Andrew's University, used to 

 scoop out with his naked hand boiling lead from a crucible 

 in the chemistry class-room — a feat which raised him 

 infinitely higher in our estimation. It is stated on the 

 highest authority that ina baker's oven, at a temperature 

 far above the boiling point of water (on one occasion 

 even 320° Fahr.) — so high, indeed, that a beefsteak was 

 cooked in thirteen minutes — Tillet in France, and Chantrey 

 in England, remained nearly an hour in comparative com- 

 fort ; and, though their clothes gave them no great in- 

 convenience, they could not hold a metallic pencil-case 

 without being severely burned. 



The Greek and Roman authors have handed down to 

 us the account of the extraordinary power which some 

 had of resisting fire. The priestesses of Diana and 

 Castabala, of Cappadocia, arrested the veneration of the 

 faithful by walking with their naked feet over burning 

 embers. The Hinpi, during the annual festival in Etruria, 

 performed the same feat. In Hindostan, it is stated that 

 Sitah, wife of Ram, in order to exculpate herself from 

 grave suspicions, walked bare-footed over red-hot iron. 

 " The foot of Sitah," say the Hindoo historians, " being 

 enveloped in innocence, the devouring heat became for 

 her a bed of roses." The Thebans, accused in the 

 "Antigone" of Sophocles, cried out, "We are ready to 

 handle burning iron and to walk through flames to prove 

 our innocence." At the beginning of the eleventh 

 century, Poppon, with'the object of drawing Suenon II., 

 King of Denmark, and his subjects to Christianity, placed 

 his naked hand and arm into a crucible of iron raised to 

 white heat, and walked through the midst of the terrified 

 Danes to the feet of the prince, to show he was uninjured. 

 Soon after, Harold, son of Magnus, King of Norway, 

 proved his right to the throne by marching with impunity 

 barefooted over red-hot iron plates. In Africa, Por- 

 tuguese travellers have seen Kaffirs justifying themselves 

 against an accusation by handling red-hot irons. Among 

 the proofs to which the apprentice sorcerers among the 

 red-skin Indians submitted on the day of their dedication, 

 was found that of walking over burning wood. 



The proof of fire was, in the Middle Ages especially, 

 reserved for persons who, by reason of their old age or 

 invalid state or profession, could not justify themselves 

 against accusations by fighting their accusers in the open 

 field by the judicial duel. This proof had a religious 

 character : it was executed in the church under the 

 direction of the clergy. The iron bars were consecrated, 

 and the priests directed all the preparations. To prevent 

 anything being put on the hands of the accused, these 



were covered up and placed under seals for several days 

 before the trial. 



It was only at the end of the seventeenth century that 

 the question of human resistance to fire was considered 

 from a scientific point of view, and that was in 1677, by 

 Dodart, a member of the Academy of Sciences, in Paris. 

 This examination was excited by the marvellous experi- 

 ments which were then performed in Paris by a 

 chemist, named Richardson. Richardson walked bare- 

 footed over burning coals. He melted sulphur, placed 

 it all ablaze on his hand, and then deposited it on his 

 tongue. A small piece of meat was cooked on burning 

 coals which were placed on his tongue. He held in his 

 hand a red-hot bar of iron, and then transferred it to his 

 teeth. Dodart explained these experiments without the 

 help of chemicals. He observed that the skin by 

 practice gets thick and impervious to heat ; he considered 

 that it was on account of the thickness of the skin of 

 their leet that the Arabs are able from their infancy to 

 walk on the burning sand. 



There are several interesting cases in which prepara- 

 tions were placed on the skin to aid in resisting the 

 heat. At the beginning of the century, Sementini, Pro- 

 fessor of Chemistry in the University of Naples, gave 

 an account of a celebrated acrobat, Lionetti, who per- 

 formed wonderful feats. This man began by putting a 

 bar of red-hot iron through his hair without burning his 

 hair ; he then passed it down his arms and legs. He 

 nipped oft" a bit of iron at a white heat with his nails ; 

 he then drank boiling oil. He dipped his fingers into 

 boiling lead, and put drops on his tongue. But Lionetti 

 was observed to put some dark powder on his head, 

 arms, legs, and tongue. The Professor made experi- 

 ments to find out the secret, and at last found that 

 sulphurous acid rubbed on had a slight power of resist- 

 ing heat ; that a solution of alum acted better ; and that 

 soap over the alum was even more effectual. He dis- 

 covered that a layer of powdered sugar covered with 

 soap was sufficient to render even the tongue completely 

 insensible to the heat ; and he performed Lionetti's 

 feats before his astonished class in the University. 



But there is a natural way of explaining most of the 

 remarkable feats. Without entering into details which 

 are found in treatises on physics, we may mention that 

 a drop of water, falling on a plate of metal intensely 

 heated, instead of immediately passing into vapour, as 

 when the plate is much cooler, assumes the form of a 

 small spheroid and remains in that state until the plate 

 is sufficiently cool to enable it to vaporise. Thus the 

 vast number of little particles of water which occupy 

 the pores of the .skin ;(and the number of pores is at 

 a maximum in the palms of the hands), finding them- 

 selves suddenly in contact with a body, as boiling metal, 

 whose temperature is exceedingly high, are thrown 

 into the spheroidal state, and are interposed between the 

 metal and the surface of the skin, forming for the skin 

 a true protecting glove. This circumstance, with firm- 

 ness and practice, enables the experimenter or acrobat 

 to perform many marvellous feats, which, unfortunately, 

 lose their charm when the secret of their execution is 

 unveiled. 



The Chinese Inundations. — Some of the districts 

 flooded by the outburst of the Hoang-Ho seem likely to 

 become permanent lakes. Extensive and expensive 

 pumping operations are in contemplation. 



