The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1905-02-06
FIJIAN FIRE WALKERS

= HERE may be seen in the National
museum an ordinary. prosaic-
looking stone. which probably es-
capes the attention of most of the
visitors, and yet which represents. the
question as to whether there may not
exist in some quarters of the world
something like actual bona fide witch
craft. says the Washington Post.
Professor Langley himself brought
this stone with him after having wit
messed the marvellous spectacle of ma
tives of the Fiji islands walking bare
foot over whitehot stones and coming
out of the ordeal unScathed. The pro-
lessor, in describing the incident, said:
L saw the spectacle of fire walking
in Tahiti The essential question as
to The actual heat of the stones had
not then been satisfactorily answered.
and after the four passages I secured
Papa-Ita's (the principal performer)
permission to remove from the middle
of the pile one stone which from it's
size and position every foot had rested
upon in crossing, and which was I'M
doubtedly at least as hot as any of
the others trodden on. 1t was pulled
out by my assistants with difficulty. I
had brought over the largest wooden
bucket which the ship had, and which
was half filed with water. The stone
caused the water to rise nearly to the
top of the bucket and 1t was thrown
-
deal of it boiled over and escaped
weighing. The stone was an exceed
ingiy bad conductor of heat, for it
continued to boil the water for about
twelve minutes, when, the ebullition
being nearly over. it was removed to
the ship.
The stone was found to weigh six
ty-tive pounds. 1 brought this piece of
it 10 Washington with me and deter
mined it's specific gravity to be 2.39
% =
tivity to- be so extremely small that
one end of a small fragment could be
held in the hand while the other was
heated indefinitely in the flame of
blowpipe. This partly defeated the aim
of the experiment Go find the tenn
perature of the. upper part of the
StOne), since only the mean tempera-
ture was found. This mean temporal
ture of the hottest stone. of the upper
layer, as deduced from the data men
toned. was about loo Fahrenheit
The temperature at which such stones
begin 10 show dull red heat by day
light is approximately 1890 TO ], 400 de-
grees Fahrenheit"
In other words. this performance of
the Ffjians is every whit as wonder
full as if a man put his naked feet
upon whitehot Goals. let them remain
there for considerable period (for
the fire walkers promenade back and
forth repeatedly upon the blazing
performance
How account for this?
In fact the theories put forth by
eye-witnesses of this modern miracle
Ga number Of them. like Professor
Langley, trained scientific Observers
are almost as varied as so many philo-
sophical systems.
Some of these observers have con-
tented themselves with the mere SUI
perhcial remark that the stones were
not as hot as they appeared, but Pro-
lessor Langley's experiment has thor |
ouShly demonstrated the fallacy of
this hypothesis Other observers, again.
admit the presence of intense heat. and
endeaVor to call science to their aid
In the construction Of theories to ac- |
count for the phenomenon. Professor
w. +. Barrett remarks:
IF d whitehot ball of metal pref
erably of copper. be lowered into a
vessel of water containing a little soap /
in solution. it will enter the water |
without any ebullition of steam. and
the ball win remain whitehot in the
water for a considerable time. The
ball, in fact. does not touch the water
and the latter remains only slightly |
until the temperature of the |
ball falls below a certain point. when !
1t comes I'm contact with the water |
and violent ebullition eHsues. The phe-
is really attributable to a re- |
pulsive force, discovered by Sir Will |
liam Crookes. which occurs when q !
hot body is brought very near to a !
cold one"
IT has been argued. too. that a sim |
liar phenomenon occurs in cases when |