melting ice for its zero, or starting-point, and
is graduated into eighty degrees between that
and boiling water. The centigrade thermometer
more conveniently divides the same
interval into a hundred degrees. The tallow,
therefore, into which it pleased M. Boutigny
to thrust his finger, as merrily as little Jack
Horner put in his thumb and pulled out a
plum, was exactly three times as hot as boiling
water. In like manner, an intrusive finger
or thumb may be plunged with equal safety
into boiling water, after having been wetted
with ether.

M. Boutigny's bold experiment had been
forestalled by M. Alphonse Michel, who
passed his finger, without any previous
precaution, through a jet of glowing melted
metal, as it flowed from the furnace. After
the Messieurs Boutigny and Michel, the fact
has been repeated and verified by the illustrious
natural philosopher, M. Despretz; by
M. Desdouit, whose recklessness alarmed M.
Boutigny himself; by M. A. Perrey, professor
of Natural Philosophy at Lyons; by
M. le Docteur Légal, of Dieppe; and by M.
Come, Professor at Laval, who relates that
his friend M. Covlet was the first to begin
handling the dangerous playthings, that they
passed their fingers through jets of cast iron,
and that they plunged their hands into
moulds and crucibles full of melted iron that
had just been tapped, and whose radiated heat
was scarcely supportable at a considerable
distance. They varied their experiments for
more than a couple of hours. Madame Covlet,
who was present, allowed her little daughter,
a child eight or ten years old, to put her hand
into a crucible full of glowing melted iron,
which was done with impunity. When their
hands were immersed in the melted metal,
after making use of sulphurous acid as the
previous moistening liquid, every one of
this venturesome party experienced a sensation
of cold.

The origin of M. Boutigny's apparently
reckless exposure of his person to the danger
of burning and even consumption by fire, and
the first hint of the principles on which he
explains its possibility, was as complete an
accident as Newton's discovery of gravitation
from the fall of an apple. One evening,
Monsieur B. was experimentalising on the
relative densities of various starches. He
put some ether into a glass vessel called an
éprouvette; he then added the starch, closed
the mouth of the tube with the tip of his
forefinger, and shook it violently. He next
placed the éprouvette on its stand, and noted
the time the starch took to precipitate. That
which was precipitated the quickest, was
either the most bulky of equal density, or the
densest of equal bulk; and this result sufficed
for the special object which he wanted to
attain.

As the ether which he employed for each
experiment was very small in quantity, he
threw it out into a fire-place, in which were
some brands of wood that still retained their
heat. Every time that the ether fell upon a
brand, a beautiful blue light streamed from
it, which had nothing in common with the
ordinary flame of ether. The phenomenon
strongly excited his curiosity, and induced
him to repeat the experiment by daylight,
and in crucibles. Consequently, he slightly
heated a platina crucible over a spirit-lamp,
and poured into it a few drops of ether.
These assumed a spherical form, and without
moistening the crucible that held them. The
crucible, removed to a dark place, was
found to be full of beautiful blue vapours.
The experimenter discovered, by means of
a slip of blue test-paper (papier de tournesol),
that the internal temperature of
the crucible was very high, whilst that of
the little spheroid within it was very low.
In fact, the slip of paper turned brown in
the crucible, whilst its extremity, plunged
in the ether-spheroid, remained perfectly
intact.

Such was the hazard or lucky accident
which led to the discovery of THE SPHEROIDAL
STATE. Its author does not say that similar
accidents have not happened to others about
the same time. He assumes to be no more
than the secretary and the interpreter of a
chance event. At first, he traced out a
narrow circle connected with this phenomenon,
every point of which he proposed to
explore successively; but he soon found that
the circle widened every day, till at last he is
obliged to confess that it is boundless. Without
presumption, he ventures to assert, that
the discovery opens a wide career to physical
and chemical experiments, and is likely to
bring about important modifications in several
theories, which, in the actual state of science,
are regarded as sufficient and true. And
thus a scientific revolution, or at least a great
step in advance, will be owing to the precipitation
of a few grains of potato-starch. For
the thousandth time, we find the greatest
results brought about by the slightest causes.
The blowing-up of steam-boilers, whether for
boats or for locomotives, is to be rendered
next to impossible. The mystery of fire-balls
from heaven will be explained; meteorologists
will have to erase from their chapter on
lightning, a form of meteor which has no
analogy to lightning proper, namely to that
which darts in straight or zigzag lines.
Such balls of fire will henceforth be styled
"spheroidal lightning." The indulgence of
geologists has to be intreated for a new
theory as to the formation of coal, which is
more than suspected to have a completely
different origin to that at present assigned to
it. It is simply a carbonate of hydrogen
(carbure d'hydrogène) condensed and passing
into a spheroidal state, and so precipitated
from the atmosphere during its gradual process
of cooling, aeons ago. The pre-adamite
plants found mixed up therewith, are merely
accidental additions swept into it, at a long