Spontaneous Decomposition of a Fabric of Silk . 
it touched the stockings it was perfectly disorganized and 
carbonated, and immediately beyond that limit was as 
sound as ever. The part of the carpet, with its fringe, 
which lay between the stockings and the floor, was in 
like manner totally destroyed, just as far as it was co- 
vered by the stockings, and no farther. The wooden 
plank, which was of pitch-pine, was also considerably 
scorched ; and beneath the place where the thickest folds 
of the stockings had lain, was converted to charcoal or 
lamp-black to a considerable depth. In throwing down 
the stockings when they were pulled off, it happened 
that about a third part of the length of one of them fell 
not upon the carpet, but upon the bare floor. This part 
of the stocking was decomposed like the rest, and the 
floor very much scorched where it had lain. 
There was very little Are on the hearth, and the little 
there was, was eight or nine feet distant. The candle had 
been carefully extinguished, and stood on a table in an- 
other direction, and about equally distant. Indeed, no 
application of burning coals or of lighted candles could 
have produced the effects which have been described. 
It would seem that the combustion, if it may be so call- 
ed, proceeded from a surcharge of anticrouon (caloric), 
or electron (electricity), in the silk, accumulated by 
means not well understood ; and that, not being refera^ 
ble to any known external agent, it may, in the present 
state of our information, be termed spontaneous. 
The substances chiefly consumed were leather, wool, 
silk, and resinous wood. The linen lining of the slipper 
was indeed destroyed as far as the leather it touched was 
destroyed. But where it did not come in contact, it 
escaped, and the Are showed no disposition to burn even 
the linen beyond the boundaries prescribed to it on the 
leather. 
What is the theory of this phenomenon ? With what 
