256 Method of giving to Cotton and Linen Thread 
cotton, which had been badly dyed, in the same manner 
as the burnt cotton. I then dried them in the open air ; 
and seeing that the weather threatened rain, I exposed 
them on a rope, extended above the court, desiring one 
of the night watchmen to look at the cOtten every quarter 
of an hour, and to throw it into a bucket of water as soon 
as he should see it begin to become heated. But as the 
man could not conceive the possibility of the spontane- 
ous inflammation of cotton, as he himself acknowledged, 
lie went his rounds without so much as looking towards 
the court. At length, however, he came back to rest him- 
self, and, by the great light he perceived, was convinced 
of what I had foretold would be the consequence of ne- 
glect. Finding that the cotton and rope were both burnt, 
he took the bucket of water to extinguish the supporters, 
which were already both on fire. 
About fifteen years ago, with a view of preventing si- 
milar dangers, I made experiments at Colmar on sponta- 
neous inflammations. I mentioned the probability of fires 
being occasioned by warm bodies, or bodies tending to 
be heated, when deposited inconsiderately in places to 
which fire may be communicated. The bodies of this 
kind, which I mentioned to those present, who were not 
sufficiently acquainted with the phenomena of spontane- 
ous inflammations, are roasted coffee, cacao, fermenting 
plants, ointments made with metallic oxides, inclosed 
quite hot in wooden barrels, bales of raw cotton, as well 
as linen or flax heaped on each other at a warm tempe- 
rature, and even linen which has been ironed and put 
warm into drawers ; in a word, all bodies covered with 
oil, such as silk and skains of cotton. I showed them be- 
sides, that in all cases where the oxygen of the atmos- 
phere is rapidly attracted and absorbed by any cause 
whatever, the caloric, which served as a base to the ox- 
ygen and gave it the qualities of gas, or elastic proper 
