The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1899-05-20
AN |NCEND|ARY M|CROBE
THE BACTER WHICH PROMOTE
COZ STION.
How an Ignorant Farmer Learned
Science from Practical Experience
The Value of Science.

The microbian world, says Jean de
Loyerdo in La Nature includes num-
Der of groups of very bad reputation
prisoners, muderers and vandals,
who, not content with attacking the
lives of ourselves and our domestic
animals, carry their rage for destruc-
ton so far as to set fire to our prop
erty, And if they pay dear for it, for
the flames destroy them also, they do
all in their power to bring about this
result. Many cases of spontaneous
combustion are incontestably their
work.
Although the cause of these COM
| bustions seems to have been known
and eXperimentally proved as far
back as Liebig's time, it is only recent
ly that it has been established to the
satisfaction both of scientists and
practical men. Among the CONVEX
sions brought about by the evidence
of facts we may note that of a great
! Austrian agriculturist NJ. Benesch,
who for so years refused to put faith
in the spontaneity of such combus-
! ton. Nevertheless, several years ago,
he was forced to admit it by an acct
dent that occurred at his farm at
| Meierhof.
In an inaccessible barn on a very
high scaffold he placed, one after the
other, 800 loads of hay, cereals and
| legumes cut green. About the middle
of the pile mass of mixed oats and
vetches began to grow hot. The en-
ploye of the farm, as well as its OWN
err, did not appreciate the danger, and
waited for time to cool this incompre-
hensible ardor. They Jared badly,
however, for several days of waiting
served only to encourage and make
more active the work of the micro
SCOPE heaters. At the end of week
a light curl of smoke arose from the
barn, and caused disquiet in the farm
of Meierhof.
NJ. Benesch after his unfruitful APP
peal to time had recourse to air, whose
contact, he thought, would cool OF
the pile and dispense to the wirus the
vaporOus products of this mysteriou ;
effervescence. But scarcely had his la
borers reached, with great toll, the
centre of the pile, when flames burst
out on all sides, transforming the
heated forage into an immense fur
mace. The laborers, indeed, di not
get out alive without great effort.
|
the contact of burning body being
impossible to maintain, this fire put
an end to the previous skepticism of
the proprietor of Meierhof in regard
to the spontaneous combustion of hay.
Other facts, not less striking, con-
firm the spontaneity of these accidents
so well that German insurance COM
panies have given serious attention to
the matter of foreseeing them in some
way The losses of one company from
this cause reached in a relatively short
time the sum of $500, 900 francs (S500,-
0O0). We need none of us expect that
our farms will escape. Strangely
enough, an excess of water brings on
the fire. The history of wet years
shows this well. Last August hay
stack holding $4,000 kilograms (l6
tons) took fire near Aulnay sous-Bois,
and barn full of hay burned sponta-
neously near Saint-Amand. This was
because the hay harvest of 1898 took
place in unfavorable conditions, and
the excess of moisture predisposed the
hay, to the on slaught of the microbes
This spontaneous combustion, in
fact, is only the last act in one OF
these secret dramas that are played
silently in the centre of badly dried
masses of forage or in the heart OF
bales of cotton or tobacco. The mi
crobes that exist in all these vegetable
matters, excited by the contact of wa
ter vapor, grow and increase rapidly
Their battalions form for attack OF
the great fortresses of vegetable fibre
: which they dismantle and digest. This
work of dislocation and fermentation
cannot go on without a certain pro
: duction of heat which is localized by
reason of the defective conductivity o.
| organic substances. For this very rea
son the evil becomes aggravated; the
} theatre of all these microbian opera
tions is overheated, and instead of eN
tending their caloric activity, the mi
crobes become their own execution
ers. In short, it has been proved tina
i'm the places where they flourish tn,
temperature rises TO 500 degrees
changing the hay into carbonaceou
matter, porous and very light. II
these unsupported kilns the forage, be
ing altered into finely divided carbon
: consumes without flame for want o
3 oxygen, but when the pile is suddenl.
, opened the access of air causes the i'm
= candescent mass TO infame instantly
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