DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70300#0042
26 kirby’s wonderful museum.
metropolis of France. A Monsieur Chaban, in Paris, ex-
hibited his astonishing powers of resisting heat, in so won-
derful a manner, that the National Institute, and other learned
societies, appointed delegates to view and inspect the per-
formances, and to report thereon. Among other singular
feats exhibited by this man, and reported to the National
Institute, was his going into a common baker’s oven, with a
leg of mutton in his hands, and remaining, in the usual man-
ner, closed in until the mutton was completely dressed:
another, that standing in the midst of a tar barrel, he remained
therein till the whole was consumed to ashes around him.
In 1818, he arrived in London, and publicly exhibited him-
self in Piccadilly, where he offered to repeat these last two
exhibitions, before any number of persons, on being properly
remunerated for the same; at the same time, he generously
offered himself to the fire-offices and the public, in cases of
calamitous fires, whenever they should be pleased to call on
him, without fee or reward.
Nothing can more clearly prove that this resistance of heat
is from a secondary agent, than that on his appearance in the
tar barrel, which is in flames around him, he is perfectly
clothed, as appears from his portrait, exhibiting this part of
his performances, now before us. Surely we cannot say that
his linen and woollen garments, with his leather shoes, w’ere
all gifted with this phenomenon; of course they must have
either been saturated with a liquid, or well rubbed with a
composition (if of a dry nature) that possesses the astonish-
ing property of resistance to fire and extreme heat, and that
it must have been of an harmless nature, is evident, from its
being necessary to wash and prepare the mouth ; and it is
presumed, in the feat of the oven and leg of mutton, that
such composition must have been taken inwardly, in order to
protect the lungs and internal parts of the body from the
actual violence of the great heat and suffocating air which
must necessarily have been produced in an heated and close
shut oven.
metropolis of France. A Monsieur Chaban, in Paris, ex-
hibited his astonishing powers of resisting heat, in so won-
derful a manner, that the National Institute, and other learned
societies, appointed delegates to view and inspect the per-
formances, and to report thereon. Among other singular
feats exhibited by this man, and reported to the National
Institute, was his going into a common baker’s oven, with a
leg of mutton in his hands, and remaining, in the usual man-
ner, closed in until the mutton was completely dressed:
another, that standing in the midst of a tar barrel, he remained
therein till the whole was consumed to ashes around him.
In 1818, he arrived in London, and publicly exhibited him-
self in Piccadilly, where he offered to repeat these last two
exhibitions, before any number of persons, on being properly
remunerated for the same; at the same time, he generously
offered himself to the fire-offices and the public, in cases of
calamitous fires, whenever they should be pleased to call on
him, without fee or reward.
Nothing can more clearly prove that this resistance of heat
is from a secondary agent, than that on his appearance in the
tar barrel, which is in flames around him, he is perfectly
clothed, as appears from his portrait, exhibiting this part of
his performances, now before us. Surely we cannot say that
his linen and woollen garments, with his leather shoes, w’ere
all gifted with this phenomenon; of course they must have
either been saturated with a liquid, or well rubbed with a
composition (if of a dry nature) that possesses the astonish-
ing property of resistance to fire and extreme heat, and that
it must have been of an harmless nature, is evident, from its
being necessary to wash and prepare the mouth ; and it is
presumed, in the feat of the oven and leg of mutton, that
such composition must have been taken inwardly, in order to
protect the lungs and internal parts of the body from the
actual violence of the great heat and suffocating air which
must necessarily have been produced in an heated and close
shut oven.