The New Hampshire Gazette

Spontaneous Combustion.—The following case of Spontaneous Combustion has been described by Mr. James Gallan of Glasgow in the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal vol. vii. p. 219. Having sold to a spirit dealer a parcel of Sample bottles, I sent them packed in an old basket, the bottom of which was much broken: to prevent the bottles from falling through, I put across the bottom of the basket a piece of old packing sheet, which had lain long about an oil and color warehouse, and was besmeared with different kinds of vegetable oil. About six or eight weeks after, the gentleman informed me that my oily cloth and basket had almost set his warehouse on fire. The basket and cloth had been thrown behind some spirit casks pretty much confined from the air, and about mid-day he was alarmed by a smell of fire. Having moved away the casks in the direction whence the smoke issued, he saw the basket and cloth in a blaze. This fact may give a useful hint to persons in public works, where galipoli, rapeseed, or linseed oils are used in their manufactories; as it is an established fact (though not generally known, that these vegetable oils used in cloths, yarn or wool, in the process of dyeing, and continued for a time from the open air, are very apt to occasion spontaneous fire.