o] , S - prea) — 
BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 427 
of it would necessarily escape combustion and be volatilized as 
such, to be deposited again on the cool earth as flowers of sulphur. 
By the exercise of a little care the operator could readily guard 
against the risk of breathing any of the fumes from the burning 
sulphur. 
Though sulphur used in this way would manifestly be less con- 
venient than the torches and be intrinsically inferior to them, 
because of the absence of any force competent to push the sul- 
phurous gas to the farthest extremity of the hole, it might perhaps 
be found to be possible so to control the burning sulphur that good 
results could be obtained with it. One difficulty might possibly 
be encountered in that an appreciable fraction of tbe sulphurous 
gas, when produced but slowly, might be absorbed by the soil. 
Actual trial would be necessary to determine whether the sulphur 
or the woodchuck would first be smothered. For it is not impos- 
sible that when most of the air in the hole had been used up, the 
hot sulphur might cease to burn before the vital spark of the animal 
went out. In point of fact, this result was actually arrived at on 
burning in the holes of woodchucks some of the so-called ‘* sulphur 
candles,” now to be had of the apothecaries for fumigating rooms 
which have been occupied by persons suffering from a contagious 
disease. It was found in repeated trials, that a large sulphur 
candle placed burning in a woodchuck hole ceased to burn long 
before the sulphur had been wholly consumed, and that the wood- 
chucks dug their way out after waiting for several days. 
A modification of the idea of burning sulphur in a warm crucible 
in the confined air of a burrow would be to try to blow in enough 
air to insure vigorous and rapid combustion. To this end a some- 
what larger crucible might be used and a small tube be led from it 
to a pair of bellows, by means of which air enough might be forced 
in to generate, within the hole, a large quantity of sulphurous gas. 
Experience would determine how much time would be needed in 
_ this case, and, indeed, whether the method would be at all effective. 
It is to be observed that an iron vessel would not be suitable 
for either of these experiments with sulphur, for a metallic vessel 
could hardly hold heat long enough to maintain the sulphur in slow 
combustion, and hot iron would be apt to combine chemically with 
sulphur and thus remove a good part of it from the field of use- 
fulness. 
