IS SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION POSSIBLE?

Auckland Star, Volume XXII, Issue 34, 10 February 1891, Page 2

IS SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION POSSIBLE?

(To the Editor.) Sir,— Captain Hearne propounds the above question, alludes to whab transpired when the subiect was under discussion by the Harbour Board, emphasises the uncertain sound of the trumpet herein, and cites the advisability of calling for a Government Commission to institute inquiry. This unique drama reminds me of a vital question, which once came up for discussion at Gunbv, Lincolnshire. The potent, grave and reverend seniors who constituted the vestry, sat for eight hours to determine what colour the church should be whitewashed. And now,, to the poser. Is spontaneous combustion possible? I say emphatically yes, and further affirm that such combustion is very likely to take place in flax. If the shipment is well and carefully dressed there is little danger; if, on the other hand, any portion iB nob properly scutched,_ combustion is very likely to ensue, as in the case of hay. The ignition of bodies by the internal development of heat without the application of an external flame not unfrequently takes place among heapß of rag, cotton, and other substances strongly lubricated with oil, when, if the oil is freshly made, it is very ready to combine with the oxygen of the atmosphere and give out carbon and hydrogen. The heat thus developed diffusing itself through a mass of highly inflammable substances will in certain circumstances be sufficient to set them on fire. Tooly-street, London, is not only con-

spicuous for ibs leash of tailors, but for a remarkable instance of sponbaneous combusbion, occurring among hemp, which produced one of the moßb frightful and disastrous conflagrations, and gave to our modern Babylon one of its most terrible baptisms of fire. In connection wibh this subject there is a ghastly chamber of horrors into which, alas ! we have been compelled sometimes to enter and reluctantly gaze. It is still a case of spontaneous combustion, as melancholy as it is singular, and is witnessed in those awful cases of depravity in which human beings become the victims in their own cases. Those whom it has befallen have always been individuals grossly addicted to intemperance, fat and advanced in years. Ib is stated the chemical changes producing this awful result are not well understood, and from the difficulties attending its explanation, some eminent chemists have rejecbed bhe theory as untenable ; but in the teeth of scepticism in these high quarters, cases have occurred which have been well authenticated and generally admitted. Terrible the thought thab man may nurse in hia bosom the viper thab strings him to deabh, may volunbarily pile the agony of his lusts, and bhereby generate that spontaneous combustion which marches him through a fiery furnace seven times hotter than by nature it was wont to be made. Frightful to offer in sacrifice, innocent children bo Moloch ! more so for men by habib bo develop into self-constibuted Molochs, and thereafter surrender the strongholds and castles of their being to this insatiable fire-fiend. My arguments herein are a priori absolutely postulates confirmed by the facts ; on the other hand, those of bhe riparian Sanhedrim are a posteriori. In the former all is clear: in the latter, in spib6 of consuming fire and flame, agnosbicism reigns rampanb. Thus bho underwriters learn " while experts muse, the fire burns." —I am, etc., John Abbott. St. George's Bay Road, Parnell, February 7th, 1891.