Part 6 (2/2)

Drinking boiling liquor is accomplished by using a cup with a false bottom, under which the liquor is retained.

A solution of spermaceti in sulphuric ether tinged with alkanet root, which solidifies at 50 degrees F., and melts and boils with the heat of the hand, is described in Beckmann's History of Inventions, Vol. II., page 121.

Dennison's No. 2 sealing wax may be melted in the flame of a candle and, while still blazing, dropped upon the tongue without causing a burn, as the moisture of the tongue instantly cools it. Care must be used, however, that none touches the hands or lips. It can be chewed, and apparently swallowed, but removed in the handkerchief while wiping the lips.

The above is the method practiced by all the Fire-Eaters, and absolutely no preparation is necessary except that the tongue must be well moistened with saliva.

Barnello once said, ”A person wis.h.i.+ng to become a Fire-Eater must make up his or her mind to suffer a little at first from burns, as there is no one who works at the business but that gets burns either from carelessness or from accident.”

This is verified by the following, which I clip from the London Globe of August 11th, 1880:

Accident to a Fire-Eater. A correspondent telegraphs: A terrible scene was witnessed in the market place, Leighton Buzzard, yesterday.

A travelling Negro fire eater was performing on a stand, licking red-hot iron, bending heated pokers with his naked foot, burning tow in his mouth, and the like. At last he filled his mouth with benzolene, saying that he would burn it as he allowed it to escape. He had no sooner applied a lighted match to his lips than the whole mouthful of spirit took fire and before it was consumed the man was burned in a frightful manner, the blazing spirit running all over his face, neck and chest as he dashed from his stand and raced about like a madman among the a.s.sembled crowd, tearing his clothing from him and howling in most intense agony. A portion of the spirit was swallowed and the inside of his mouth was also terribly burnt. He was taken into a chemist's shop and oils were administered and applied, but afterwards in agonizing frenzy he escaped in a state almost of nudity from a lodging house and was captured by the police and taken to the work-house infirmary, where he remains in a dreadful condition.

REMEMBER! Always have a large blanket at hand to smother flames in burning clothing--also a bucket of water and a quant.i.ty of sand. A siphon of carbonic water is an excellent fire extinguisher.

The gas of gasoline is heavier than air, so a container should never be held ABOVE a flame. Keep kerosene and gasoline containers well corked and at a distance from fire.

Never inhale breath while performing with fire. FLAME DRAWN INTO THE LUNGS IS FATAL TO LIFE.

So much for the entertaining side of the art. There are, however, some further scientific principles so interesting that I reserve them for another chapter.

[1] Such disloyalty in trusted servants is one of the most disheartening things that can happen to a public performer. But it must not be thought that I say this out of personal experience: for in the many years that I have been before the public my secret methods have been steadily s.h.i.+elded by the strict integrity of my a.s.sistants, most of whom have been with me for years. Only one man ever betrayed my confidence, and that only in a minor matter. But then, so far as I know, I am the only performer who ever pledged his a.s.sistants to secrecy, honor and allegiance under a notarial oath.

[3] Barnello's Red Demon.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE SPHEROIDAL CONDITION OF LIQUIDS.--WHY THE HAND MAY BE DIPPED IN MOLTEN METALS.--PRINCIPLES OF HEAT-RESISTANCE PUT TO PRACTICAL USES: ALDINI, 1829.--IN EARLY FIRE-FIGHTING. TEMPERATURES THE BODY CAN ENDURE.

The spheroidal condition of liquids was discovered by Leidenfrost, but M. Boutigny was the first to give this singular subject careful investigation. From time out of mind the test of letting a drop of water fall on the face of a hot flat-iron has been employed to discover whether it may safely be used. Everybody knows that if it is not too hot the water will spread over the surface and evaporate; but if it is too hot, the water will glance off without wetting the iron, and if this drop be allowed to fall on the hand it will be found that it is still cool. The fact is that the water never touches the hot iron at all, provided the heat is sufficiently intense, but a.s.sumes a slightly elliptical shape and is supported by a cus.h.i.+on of vapor. If, instead of a flat-iron, we use a concave metal disk about the size and shape of a watch crystal, some very interesting results may be obtained. If the temperature of the disk is at, or slightly above, the boiling point, water dropped on it from a medicine dropper will boil; but if the disk is heated to 340 degrees F., the drop practically retains its roundness--becoming only slightly oblate--and does not boil. In fact the temperature never rises above 206 degrees F., since the vapor is so rapidly evaporated from the surface of the drop that it forms the cus.h.i.+on just mentioned. By a careful manipulation of the dropper, the disk may be filled with water which, notwithstanding the intense heat, never reaches the boiling point. On the other hand, if boiling water be dropped on the superheated disk its temperature will immediately be REDUCED to six degrees below the boiling point; thus the hot metal really cools the water.

By taking advantage of the fact that different liquids a.s.sume a spheroidal form at widely different temperatures, one may obtain some startling results. For example, liquid sulphurous acid is so volatile as to have a temperature of only 13 degrees F. when in that state, or 19 degrees below the freezing point of water, so that if a little water be dropped into the acid, it will immediately freeze and the pellet of ice may be dropped into the hand from the still red-hot disk. Even mercury can be frozen in this way by a combination of chemicals.

Through the action of this principle it is possible to dip the hand for a short time into melted lead, or even into melted copper, the moisture of the skin supplying a vapor which prevents direct contact with the molten metal; no more than an endurable degree of heat reaches the hand while the moisture lasts, although the temperature of the fusing copper is 1996 degrees. The natural moisture of the hand is usually sufficient for this result, but it is better to wipe the hand with a damp towel.

In David A. Wells' Things not Generally Known, New York, 1857, I find a translation of an article by M. Boutigny in The Comptes Rendus, in which he notes that ”the portion of the hands which are not immersed in the fused metal, but are exposed to the action of the heat radiated from its surface, experience a painful sensation of heat.” He adds that when the hand was dampened with ether ”there was no sensation of heat, but, on the contrary, an agreeable feeling of coolness.”

Beckmann, in his History of Inventions, Vol. II., page 122, says:

In the month of September, 1765, when I visited the copper works at Awested, one of the workmen, for a little drink money, took some of the melted copper in his hand, and after showing it to us, threw it against the wall. He then squeezed the fingers of his h.o.r.n.y hand close together, put it for a few minutes under his armpit, to make it sweat, as he said; and, taking it again out, drew it over a ladle filled with melted copper, some of which he skimmed off, and moved his hand backwards and forwards, very quickly, by way of ostentation.

While I was viewing this performance, I remarked a smell like that of singed horn or leather, though his hand was not burnt.

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