Mr. T.H. Easterfield gave a lecture upon the subject of “Combustion, spontaneous and otherwise.”

The lecturer commenced by considering in detail the combustion of an ordinary candle, and showed an experiment to prove that no loss of weight takes place when a candle burns.

He then showed that a gradual process of combustion was always going on in the bodies of all animals. Speaking of the terms combustible and supporter of combustion, he said that these were purely relative, and illustrated his remarks by showing that air would burn in an atmosphere of coal gas as readily as coal gas in an atmosphere of air.

Subsequently he showed that light as well as heat could cause combustion to commence.

Spontaneous combustion, i.e., combustion which took place of its own free will, was, he said, an impossibility, and he explained upon chemical and physical principles what takes place in the phenomena usually said to be spontaneous.