The Daily Herald

Fire from the rays of the Sun—Lucky Escape.

—Yesterday afternoon about 5 o'clock, the house No. 5, Village street, occupied by Mrs. Broome, as a boarding house, was discovered to be on fire in the upper story; several articles of clothing hanging upon a partition wall, being consumed, a chair almost destroyed, and the flames having caught the partition, blazing up to the roof. Being thus timely discovered, however, it was extinguished without further damage. The origin of the fire was somewhat singular. The partition where it caught is built out from the centre of a fanlight at the west end of the room, thus dividing the window between two apartments; one of the panes of the fanlight, it seems, forms a convex lens, and the sun shining quite warm, and directly upon the window, it had operated like a "sun-glass," and set the dresses on fire, from whence it communicated to the wall. That this was the manner in which it caught, any one might have convinced himself by holding his hand a few moments in the focus of the glass. Had it remained undiscovered a few minutes longer, it would have made work for the firemen.

Hartford Courier.