Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 14.djvu/675

Rh whether a cask contains gunpowder or not, to insert a red-hot poker into the bung-hole. Yet such a proceeding would be scarcely less foolhardy than the detection of the presence of gas by means of flame. The test in both cases is most thorough, but it is too energetic in its action to be of any value but to those who wish to rise in the world too suddenly.

Drunkenness is a well-known source of burned-out dwellings, the habitual tippler being too often left to his own devices in the matter of matches and candles. The usual faculty of double vision with which an inebriated man is gifted leads to a divided claim upon the extinguisher, which naturally points to a disastrous sequel. Even sober people will be guilty of the most hazardous habits, such as novel-reading in bed with a candle placed near them on a chair; for novels, like some other graver compositions, are occasionally apt to induce slumber; and the first movement of the careless sleeper may imperil his life, as well as the lives of others who may be under the same roof with him.

The caprices of female dress have also often led to fatal accidents from fire, and crinoline skirts had in their day much to answer for. But at the present time petticoats seem to have shrunk in volume to the more moderate dimensions of an ordinary sack, so that we are not likely to hear of accidents from this particular cause until some fresh enormity is perpetrated in the name of fashion. We may mention in this connection that tungstate of soda (a cheap salt) will render muslins, etc., uninflammable. But strange to say it is not generally adopted, even on the stage, where the risks are so multiplied, because it is said to prevent the starch drying with due stiffness! We have all heard of what female courage is capable when little ones are in danger, but we hardly thought that it was equal to the task of risking precious life for the appearance of a muslin dress. We can only bow, and say—nothing.

Where fires have been traced to spontaneous combustion, it has generally been found that some kind of decomposing vegetable matter has been the active instrument in their production. Cotton-waste which has been used for cleaning oily machinery and then thrown aside in some forgotten corner, sawdust on which vegetable oil has been spilt, and hemp, have each in its turn been convicted of incendiarism. The simple remedy is, to avoid the accumulation of lumber and rubbish in places where valuable goods and still more valuable lives are at stake. Occasionally fires have been accidentally caused by the concentration of the sun's rays by means of a lens or of a globe of water, and opticians have for this reason to be very careful in the arrangement of their shop windows. A case lately occurred where a fire was occasioned, it was supposed, by a carafe of water that stood on the center of a table. The sun's rays had turned it into a burning-glass! It is stated, with what amount of truth we can not say, that fires in tropical forests are sometimes caused by the heavy dewdrops attached to the foliage acting the part of lenses.