The Democrat. (Scotland Neck, Halifax Co., N.C.) 1884-1896, 1888-01-13
CURIOUS FIRES.
Singular Instances of Spontane-
Gus Combustion.
Accounting for Flames in Cot
ton Bales, Etc

Scarcely month passes that careful
investigation into the causes Of fires
does not reveal some new hazard Of
greater or less importance, or make
known instances Of the starting Of fires
under circumstances hitherto considered
impossible.
Cotton in bales has always been sup
posed to be free from spontaneous com
bustion until lately, when a case was
discovered in a storehouse in Northern
New Jersey. \ number of bales of Sea
Island cotton stored there were found
TO be on fire. and when it was extin-
guished in one spot it would break out
in another. A careful examination Of
the cotton and its condition showed that
it was roller gin cotton-that is, cotton
which had not been run through a gang
of saws, after the method of Eli Whit
ncy, but the liat had been drawn away
from the seeds by pair of rolls, one
large and one small, set at Just the dis
lance to keep the seeds from passing
through, while the fibre passes on and
goes into bag.
1t was found in this lot of cotton that
some of the seeds had passed into the rolls
and been cracked, which caused the oil
to exude, saturating the fiber, which
was thus by the time it arrived in the
North in the proper condition for
spontaneous combustion. Careful and
extensive inquiry among Northern mills
failed to reveal any other such case, and
therefore it can hardly be taken as a
strong objection against the use of
roller gins in general The ordinary
roller gin is practically a prehistoric
tool, as it has been in use since cotton
was known in ancient India 1t is not
nearly so fast as the ordinary saw gin,
but is said to do its work somewhat
better and with the least possible IN
jury to the fiber, and to be therefore
preferred for Sea Island cotton, which
is of long fiber, and almost double the
value of the ordinary grades.
Another curious fire was that which
occurred in asknife factory in Massachu-
setts. In the middle of room a small
milling machine was working on hard
wood handles of knives. The dust or
small fragments of the wood which were
ground off were drawn up through
metal tube about one foot in diameter
by blower in the room above, and
then forced through a wooden pipe out
into the air. A spark from an emery
wheel, fifteen feet away from the milling
machine, struck a window twenty feet
away and glancing back entered the
mouth of the metal tube and set the
hardwood dust on fire, a stream of
which twenty feet in length poured out
into the air. The alarm was given by
the people outside, the workmen in the
room being entirely unaware of any fire.
Another peculiar instance was fire
started by some cotton waste which an
engineer in cleaning up mill put in
front of boiler where it would be con-
venient for the fire to burn in the morn
ing. During the night the waste got on
fire from spontaneous combustion and
set fire to the kindlings and succeeded
in raising sufficient steam to cause the
boiler to blow off, very thoroughly scar
ing the Waterman, who naturally
thought the boiler, which he knew had
been left without a fire, was going to ex~
plodc.
Still another singular case was
that of fire caused in the
picker room of jute mill by a man
driving a nail in the ceiling. The aail
glanced off and was struck by the rapid
ly moving bcaters, aud the sparks
which were caused thereby led to
serious blaze. New York Fire and
Water