WORLD ACHIEVEMENT

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 98, 25 March 1939, Page 11

WORLD ACHIEVEMENT

TREADING ON FTRE. A year or two ago a man walked on coals of fire in a Surrey garden. He was Kuda Bux, a young Kashmiri Indian, and the miracle he performed was witnessed by a number of important people. Among them were several doctors who had assembled at Carshalton- One of the doctors tried the same performance with disastrous results. What happened was that the Indian had two trenches about 12 feet long and 8 inches deep filled with logs, firewood and charcoal. 'The fires were lit and stoked up for 12 hours till they reached a temperature of about 800 degrees. When all was ready, Kuda Bux walked slowly along the trenches in his bare feet. He showed not the slightest sign of haste, never winced, remained smilingly confident the whole time, and when his feet were examined afterwards there was not the faintest indication of burning flesh. How are we to account for this? One suggestion is that the soles of the Indian’s feet are so hard that fire does not scorch them, hut this can hardly lie satisfactory when one thinks of the intense heat. Another is that the mind triumphs over tho body, and is impervious to pain of any sort. A third is an explanation suggested as the result of scientific investigation by Air C. B. Darling who is convinced that the secret is in the ability, acquired after long practice, of putting the feet down in such a wav that no part of the sole ever rest on one spot for more than half a second, with the result that the contact produces a rise in temperature of no more than 40 to 50 degrees, not sufficient to scorch them. —(L.)