On Spontaneous Inflammations , 97 
iified, that after they have bought wool that was become 
wet, and packed it close in their warehouse, this wool 
has burnt of itself ; and very serious consequences might 
have followed, if it had not been discovered in time. 
The spontaneous accension of various matters from 
the vegetable kingdom, as wet hay, corn, and maddeiy 
and at times wet meal and malt, are already sufficiently 
known. Experiments have likewise repeatedly been 
made with regard to such phenomena ; and it will pre- 
sently appear, that hemp, or lax, and hemp -oil, have fre- 
quently given rise to dreadful conflagrations. Montet 
says : In the year i7&7> a sort of sail-cloth, called pre- 
lart , having one side of it smeared with ochre and oil, 
took fire in the magazine at Brest, where it had probably 
kindled of itself. It is not at all unlikely that many fires 
in sea-ports have arisen from these self-aecensions ; as it 
has often happened that, after the strictest inquiry, the 
real cause of them lias not been discovered. 
About twenty years ago, several fires broke out within 
a short space of time in a rope-walk, and in some wooden 
houses, at St. Petersburg!! ; and, in all these instances, 
not the slightest trace of wilful firing could be found : 
but there was lying in the rope -walk, where the cables 
for the navy are made, a great heap of hemp, among 
which a considerable Quantity of oil had been carelessly 
spilt, and it was therefore declared spoilt; for which 
reason it had been bought at a low price, and put up to- 
gether, and was held to be the cause of the fire. The 
inferior inhabitants of that part of the town had likewise 
bought of this spoilt hemp, at a cheaper rate than usual, 
for closing the chinks, and caulking the windows of their 
houses, which are constructed of balks laid one upon the 
other. At this rope- walk, coils of cable have been found 
hot, and the people have been obliged to separate them, 
to prevent farther danger. 
Vol. r. 
x 
