Though this experiment offers no very evident danger to the operator, it would be as well to envelop the bottle in a cloth, to guard against accidents.
A Well of Fire.
Add gradually one ounce, by measure, of sulphuric acid, to five or six ounces of water, contained in an earthenware basin, and add to it also, gradually, about three quarters of an ounce of granulated zinc. A rapid production of hydrogen gas will instantly take place. Then add, from time to time, a few pieces of phosphorus of the size of a pea. A multitude of gas-bubbles will be produced, which take fire on the surface of the effervescing liquid; the whole surface of the liquid will become luminous, and fire-balls, with jets of fire, will dart from the bottom, through the fluid, with great rapidity, and a hissing noise.
To make a Room seem all on Fire.
Take sal ammoniac half an ounce, camphor one ounce, aquæ vitæ two ounces; put them into an earthen pot in the fashion of a chamber-pot, but narrow something upon the top; then set fire to it, and the room will seem, to them that are in it, to be all on fire.
To walk on a hot Iron Bar, without Danger of Burning.
Take half an ounce of camphor, dissolve it in two ounces of aquæ vitæ, add to it one ounce of quicksilver, one ounce of liquid storax, which hinders the camphor from firing; take also two ounces of hematitis, a red stone, to be had at the druggist’s; and when you buy it, let them beat it to powder in their great mortar, for it is so very hard that it cannot be done in a small one; put this to the above-mentioned composition, and, when you intend to walk on the bar, you must anoint your feet well therewith, and you may walk over without danger. By this you may wash your hands in boiling lead.
To Eat Fire, and blow it up in your Mouth with a Pair of Bellows.
Anoint your tongue with liquid storax, and you may put a pair of tongs into your mouth, red hot, without hurting yourself, and lick them till they are cold. By the help of this ointment, and by preparing your mouth thus,
