152
NOTES AND QUERIES. pi s. ix. FEB. 21, in.
"I cannot help thinking that some physical
phenomenon takes place which has not been under-
stood or explained, and that the natives of the
tribe, which is the only one in Fiji that performs or
attempts this ceremony, so far as I am aware, have
at some bygone period become acquainted with the
bare fact and taken advantage of it. With the help
of superstitious fear of failure and physical bravado
they succeed in doing this. I fancy but this is
only an impression that much depends on the
precise stage of co9ling the stones have attained
when the men step in on to them.
" The auspicious moment has always seemed to me to come suddenly, as if delay were as risky as premature action.
"I do not think that the words 'nothing but mere bravado ' convey the truth, though I am con- fident that bravado is a necessary factor in the successful accomplishment of the act.
"I once carefully noted the time occupied by the walkers in completing their journey on the hot stones.
" The foremost couple to step in were eleven seconds on them ; the last couple of the sixteen men were not more than two seconds, the dracsena and other leaves being thrown in and trampled under foot by them before they had taken more than two or three steps."
The above scientific description of this peculiar act given by Dr. Corney is the most complete yet recorded.
R. USSHER.
Westbury Vicarage, Brackley, Northants.
The ordeal by fire, and the secret of endur- ing it without injury, was very early known in Greece, e.g. vide Soph., 'Antigone', 274. Albertus Magnus mentions a compound of powdered lime formed into a paste with the juice of the radish, the white of egg, the juice of the marshmallow, and the seeds of the flea-bane, a coat of which having been applied to the body and allowed to dry, and another coat laid on it, the body will be preserved from the effects of fire (' De Mirabilibus Mundi ').
Dr. Brewster (' Letters on Natural Magic,' 1832, p. 312) mentions several experiments to prove the extraordinary heat which the living body can bear with impunity, and favours the possibility of persons passing uninjured through flame, provided the body can be guarded from being scorched by a non-conducting covering of incombustible nature. Walking with naked feet on burning coals is attributed by Beckmann (' Hist, of Inventions,' translation, iii. 277) to the skin of the soles of the feet being callous and horny, so as to defend the nerves from the impression which the hot coals would otherwise make upon them. Beck- mann says (loco citato)
" that this ordeal may be affected by frequently moistening the parts with sulphuric acid, or by constantly, for a long time, rubbing the feet with
oil, which produces in the skin the same horny
state as it causes in leather."
The ordeal of plunging the bared arm into " water heated to an extraordinary degree " was made possible by using fluids that boil at low temperature, instead of water ; and, as Sir David Brewster properly remarks,
" even when the fluid requires a high temperature to boil, it may have other properties which enable us to plunge our hands into it with impunity."
A saturated solution of alum preserves any part strongly impregnated with it from the action of fire, particularly if the skin is rubbed with soap after the application of the alum. Dr. Semintini states that by means of this preparation he repeated, on his own person, the experiments of the in- combustible men (' Essai sur la Physiologie Humaine,' par G. Grimaud et V. C. Durocher, Paris, 1826, p. 76). This process, the effi- ciency of which has been tested and con- firmed by recent experiments, was probably the same as that made use of by the ancients, since they also employed inert materials to enable them to encounter the flames ('The Philosophy of Magic,' by A. T. Thomson, from the French of M. Salverte, 1846).
Beckmann observes that where the ordeal of fire was taken as the exculpatory evidence of crime, the preventive was applied to those persons who were to appear innocent. When the ordeal was abolished, and the art became valueless, the secret was lost. In cases where persons decided to prove their inno- cence by the ordeal of fire, and had fire placed on their clothes without being in the smallest degree damaged, the apparent miracle might astonish those who witnessed it; but after what has been said about the possibility of walking on burning bodies, and considering the fact that cloth might be made with asbestos common cloth rendered incombustible by soaking it in a concen- trated solution of alum there can be no diffi- culty in explaining the assumed miracle.
TOM JONES.
Like W. B. S. , I remember reading when a boy of storax, and trying it. / was burnt. MARCH C. DUNNING.
THE WILD HUNTSMAN : HERNE THE
HUNTER (11 S. ix. 15, 77). I have always
supposed that*! Harrison Ainsworth repre-
sented Herne the keeper as having lived in
the reign of Richard II. for the simple
reason that Richard was the immediate
predecessor of Henry IV. ; that in the
' Merry Wives ' Herne is already a dead
man, whose ghost is supposed to appear
