Bouffant

“ The blinding effect of the dense smoke that filled the atmosphere, the suffocating smell of the burning mass of vegetable matter, and the lurid glare of the red flames that came on so rapidly, overpowered alike the horses and their riders: while the roaring of the fire—which sounded like a mighty rushing cataract—and the oppressive heat, seemed to confuse the senses, and destroy the vital powers of the more feeble and ill-mounted of the fugitives. ”

“ To bring about the combustion of the candle it is necessary to apply heat to the wick, but afterwards the heat which is liberated is more than sufficient to sustain the action.
We have now arrived at a tolerably clear conception of Flame; it is merely volatile combustible matter heated to whiteness. Fire is simply a convenient word which we make use of to denote the extrication of light and heat during combustion, and the ancient notion that it is one of the primordial constituents of the material world is no longer tenable. ”

“ The telephone rang and the Little Woman excused herself and went into the hall, closing the door softly behind her.
I'm not greatly given to reminiscence, but while I sat and watched the flames of civilization licking tamely at the impregnable iron bark of the gas logs, the eyes of my memory looked upon a picture:
Desert, empty and with the mountains standing back against the sky, the great dipper uptilted over a peak and the stars bending close for very friendliness. The licking flames of dry greasewood burning, with a pungent odor in my nostrils when the wind blew the smoke my way. ”

“ The whole country was alight, and down there the world seemed on fire. At times the smoke swooped blindingly, and half strangled her. Her skirts, in passing, swept the black ashes from grass roots which showed red in the night.
Picking her way carefully around the spots that glowed warningly, shielding her face as well as she could from the smoke, she kept on until she was close upon the fighters. ”

“ The first thing that we observe is the fire, as it snaps and hisses. How warm it is, and how good it feels as we toast our cold hands and feet before it! But somehow we begin [Pg 21] to wish that we were back beside our own stove. Then our eyes would not ache from the smoke. Why does it not go out at the top? It tries to, but the wind blows it back into the house so that, at times, it fills every corner, blinding our eyes, stifling our breath, and covering us with cinders from head to foot. ”

“ We read occasionally, in the newspapers, of cases of spontaneous combustion, which the physical system, inflamed to the highest point by habitual excess, by having the liquid fire of alcohol continually poured into it, and stimulated no doubt by the internal fire of all bad passions at the same time—at length actually bursts out into a flame, consuming the living man, body and clothes. How horrid a picture! Would not such a burning man seem to represent in fearful form the state of the spirit within, blazing with "the fire that is not quenched?" ”

“ The hotter an Herb is, the better it is hereunto; yet its wrathful Fire must be changed into Love, arid then he can also change the Wrath in the Body into Joy, all according as the Property of the Disease is, that the Disease be able to bear it; for to a weak Fire in the Body, which is tired and languished by Reason of the Heat, and rather inclines to Cold, viz. to the Poison of Mercury, where the Life is in Danger, there belongs a Cure with a fine subtil Heat, wherein Venus is strong, and Mars very tender and mild by Reason of the Power of Venus ”

“ Thus fire has a double fund of certain subsistence; if it consume much air it can also produce much by the rarefaction of water, and thus repair, in the mass of atmosphere, all the quantity it destroyed, while ulteriorly it converts itself with air into fixed matter in the terrestrial substances which it penetrates by its heat or by its light. And so, likewise, as water is converted into air, or into vapours, as volatile as air, by its rarefaction, it is also converted into a solid substance by a kind of condensation. Every fluid is rarefied by heat and condensed by cold. ”

“ A fougette forces itself immediately forward, cuts as it penetrates, by the formation of its sides, which are filled with small spikes, becomes combustible, and on fire at all its points, and possesses within itself a thousand different means, by which it can adhere to whatever object it is destined to set on fire or destroy. ”

“ Even water, that destructive element to fire, by which alone we can prevent its progress, nevertheless communicates when in a well-closed vessel, such as Papin’s digester, where it is penetrated with a sufficient quantity of fire to render it luminous, and capable of melting lead and tin, whereas when it is only boiling, far from communicating fire, it extinguishes it immediately. It is true, that heat alone is sufficient to prepare and dispose combustible bodies for inflammation, by driving off the humid parts from bodies ”

“ There is one evil, however, which is common to all bog-burning as compared with liming—it must waste the ammoniacal salts, as they are volatile, and are driven away into the air by the heat of combustion. ”

“ There is some sprinkling of powdered incense over the embers of the hempen bonfire in order that the fumes, mingling with the ghostly essences that permeate the air, may smother evil influences; sometimes, too, men light their pipes in the flame, thinking thus to inhale good fortune ”

“ The strongest condensations are not capable of breaking its spring; the active fire, in combustible matters, is the only agent which can alter its nature by rarefying and extending its spring to the point of rendering it ineffectual, and thus destroying its elasticity. In this state, and in all the links which precede, the air is capable of re-assuming its elasticity, in proportion as the vapours of combustible matters evaporate and separate from it. ”

“ The fumigations, by means of devils composed of wetted gun-powder, are perhaps often carried to too great an excess, and, in fact, this kind of fumigation is liable to many and great objections, particularly in cold or wet weather, when it is most commonly practised; the cold air, rushing into the fumigated apartments when opened, immediately condenses the vapour that remains, and leaves a degree of dampness that must be unwholesome. ”

“ I caused that, which was already there, to be drained away; and then applying the burning Candle to the surface of the dry Earth at the same point, where the Water burned before; the Fumes took fire, and burn'd very bright and vigorous. The Cone of the Flame ascended a foot and a half from the Superficies of the Earth. The Basis of it was of the Compass of a Mans hat about the brims. ”

“ Fire without us is quenched by the pouring on of water, no wonder then if even internal heat is allayed by draughts from the brook; for the flame is nourished or fails, according as it is fed or not. As hay, stubble, wood, oil, and the like are the fuel of fire, and feed it, and if you withdraw or do not supply them the fire is quenched, so also the warmth of the body is nourished or diminished by food; by food it is excited and by food allayed. Gluttony therefore is the mother of lust. ”

“ So long as it has the Cold's Substance to live upon, its Life arises, and yet it is Nothing but a constant Dying and consuming, and in its devouring is the greatest Hunger after Substance; this same [Hunger] passes forth through and with the devouring out of the Dying of the Fire, and dwells in the Nothing, yet it may not be a Nothing, and also it cannot be a Nothing, therefore it draws the Fire again into itself ”

“ The heat of animals, and of the rays of the heavenly bodies also (as they reach us) , is found to differ by a wide interval from flame, though of the mildest kind, and from all [p. 141] ignited bodies; and from liquids also, and air itself when highly heated by fire. For the flame of spirit of wine, though scattered and not condensed, is yet sufficient to set paper, straw, or linen on fire; which the heat of animals will never do, or of the sun without a burning-glass or mirror.
21. There are however many degrees of strength and weakness in the heat of flame and ignited bodies. ”

“ So remarkable is its liking for fire, that we might imagine it to be the Avis incendiaria of the ancients; it has been known to pluck the burning wick from a lamp and swallow it, or to draw small live coals from the hearth for this purpose, without any apparent ill effect, and so to delight in smoke as to take every opportunity of throwing a scrap of rag, wood, or paper into the grate, for the pleasure of seeing the light clouds ascend as it is consumed by the flames. ”

“ A person, of however healthy a brain; subjected to the influence of these fumigations, was induced to believe that he saw the most frightful apparitions.
However extraordinary such effects, they were not incredible,—not at variance with our notions of the known laws of nature. And to the vapour or the odours which a powder applied to a lamp had called forth, I was, therefore, prepared to ascribe properties similar to those which Bacon's conjecture ascribed to the witches' ointment, and the French traveller to the fumigations of the African conjuror. ”

“ Nothing, according to my opinion, is combustible but that which has been formed by a gentle heat, that is, by these same elements combined in all the substances which the sun brightens and vivifies, or in that which the internal heat of the earth foments and unites.
The internal heat of the globe of the earth must be regarded as the true elementary fire; it is always subsisting and constant; it enters, like an element, into all the combinations of the other elements, and is more than sufficient to produce the same effects on air as actual fire on animal heat ”

“ Those in which earth and water predominate will be fixed, and will only become volatile by the action of heat; and those which contain most air and fire will be the only real combustibles. The great difficulty here is clearly to conceive how air and fire, both so volatile, can fix and become constituent parts of all bodies. ”

“ It is commonly supposed, that flame is the hottest part of fire, yet nothing is more erroneous than this opinion; the contrary may be demonstrated by the most simple and familiar experiments. Offer to a straw fire, or even to the flame of a lighted faggot, a cloth to dry or heat, and treble the time will be required to what would be necessary if presented to a brasier without flame. Newton very accurately defines flame to be a burning smoke, and this smoke, or vapour, has never the same quantity or intensity of heat as the combustible body from which it escapes. ”

“ As the smoke and vapour which ascend from burning fuel rise in consequence of their being rarefied by heat, and made lighter than the air of the surrounding atmosphere; and as the degree of their rarefaction, and consequently their tendency to rise, is in proportion to the intensity of their heat; and further, as they are hotter near the fire than at a greater distance from it, it is clear that the nearer the throat of a Chimney is to the fire, the stronger will be, what is commonly called, its DRAUGHT, and the less danger there will be of its smoking. ”

“ Even combustible matters will not keep it alive if deprived of air, for under this privation the most intense fire will not burn; but a single spark of air is sufficient to kindle them, and in proportion as it is supplied with that element the fire becomes strong, extended, and devouring. ”

“ Their first act was to set fire to the malt house which was at the east, then to straw, and grain, and hay stacks which were at the north and east, and at last to the cow house, stable, and long fish press which were at the west of my house. These being of very combustible materials, in less than half an hour we were encompassed with flames on every side but one, and by reason of the fire and smoke between us and them, we were unable to see any of our enemies, and our lungs were dreadfully oppressed by the smoke which found its way in at every crevice. ”

“ Some ignited bodies are found to be much warmer than some flames; for instance, red hot iron is much warmer, and burns more than the flame of spirits of wine. 26. Some bodies even not ignited, but only heated by the fire, as boiling water, and the air confined in reverberatories, surpass in heat many flames and ignited substances. 27. Motion increases heat, as is shown in the bellows and the blowpipe; for the harder metals are not dissolved or melted by steady quiet fire, without the aid of the blowpipe. 28. Let an experiment be made with burning-glasses ”

“ We scramble and grope our way down, ever deeper into this apparently bottomless pit, into this boiling smoking abyss, where the evil-smelling fumes wrap us round so effectually that we can scarcely trace our path, and choking and blinded, we wonder vaguely, if we shall ever emerge into light and air once more. ”

“ Back in the face of the advancing flame where the chemicals had again been tried, men gave up. Human flesh and will could not stand before that blast. Unhampered, the flames leaped higher, ran faster before the wind, spread their front wider and their growing draft again picked up brands and flung them out over the heads of those who worked feverishly. ”

“ The fire, which arises from the fermentation of herbs heaped together, and which manifests itself in effervescences, is not an exception that can be opposed to me, since this production of fire depends, like all the rest, from the action of the shock of the parts of matter one against the other. ”

“ The most general difference between fire, heat, and light, appears, therefore, to consist in the quantity, and perhaps quality, of their food.
Air is the first food of fire; combustible matters are only the second. It has been demonstrated, by experiments, that a little spark of fire, placed in a vessel well closed, in a short time absorbs a great quantity of air, and becomes extinguished as soon as the quantity or quality, of this food becomes deficient. ”