the Adrianople Tied, and other fixed Colours , 8gc* 255 
With a view to discover whether red cotton, which had 
not the requisite fixity, could acquire it by impregnating 
it with an alkaline solution of alumine, with excess of 
boiled linseed oil, and drying it, and then boiling it a 
very long time in bran water, I mixed the alkaline solu- 
tion of alumine in the proportions of an eighth, a twelfth, 
and a sixteenth part of boiled linseed oil. I then immer- 
sed in this mixture some dozens of skains of dyed cotton, 
w hich, after being dried in the open air for a whole day 
the preceding summer, were placed under the window of 
my cabinet, on a straw-bottomed chair. Being that day 
indisposed, I went to bed at seven in the evening, with- 
out any uneasiness in regard to my cotton. My children, 
about an hour after, went into my cabinet to look for some 
sheets of paper, and observed in the cotton neither heat 
nor any smell of combustion. All the w orkmen of the 
manufactory were in a state of profound sleep, when one 
of the watchmen of the bleachfield, seeing my cabinet all 
illuminated, called out “ Fire !” and awaked us betw een 
twelve and one o’clock in the morning. My sons, know- 
ing that I was not able to get out of bed, and unwilling 
to lose time in searching for the key, burst open the door 
of the cabinet, which is an uninhabited and detached 
building. They entered, notwithstanding the thick smoke 
and insupportable odour of the oily combustion, and 
found the cotton and chair so much on fire, that the flame, 
which rose to the ceiling, had already broken the glass 
and burnt the frame of the w indow. They immediately 
concluded, that this fire could arise only from the spon- 
taneous inflammation of the cotton impregnated and co- 
vered with boiled oil, since no person had entered the 
cabinet either with a lighted pipe, or with any other mat- 
ters in a state of combustion. Observing that several per- 
sons in the manufactory refused to assent to this explana- 
tion, I again impregnated some dozens of skains of old 
