Lamps that burn for a long time

116. Lamps that burn for a long time

There are lamps in underground catacombs that remained lit after many years.

A subterranean, tightly sealed place has very little air stirred.

• This allows many branched soot particles to collect around the flame of the lamp.

These particles mutually support each other while remaining immobile.

• They create a kind of small vault sufficient to prevent the surrounding air from burying and suffocating the flame.

They would also break and blunt the force of the flame in such a way that no more particles of oil or wick, if any remained, could ignite.

This would cause the fire-aether, alone remaining there and rapidly rotating like a small star, to repel the air-aether globules from itself on all sides.

Thus, the light would spread throughout the chamber, like a small and dim light.

• But it that could easily regain strength with the external movement of air, when the space opened.

The lamp, free from soot, displayed its burning flame.

The Remaining Effects of Fire

Moreover, it is also clear how from these bodies, initially,

The smoke from fire is made up of the finest and slippery particles.

• Some particles are more branched and intertwined that the initial smoke particles.
• These adhere to the walls of chimneys, forming soot.
• The thickest ones alone remain as ashes.

How does the force of fire cause certain non-fuels to:

• melt and boil
• dry and harden
• evaporate
• turn into lime or glass.

118. Which bodies, when added to it, melt and boil?

The hard bodies that are composed of particles that are easy to separate from each other melt when subjected to the force of fire.

Liquids consist of moving particles separated from each other.

When subjected to heat, their particles move very fast and turn into air or fire.

• They demand more space for their motion.
• And so they expel others.
• This manifests as boiling.

119. Which bodies dry and harden?

However, bodies dry out and do not boil.

• This is if they containing many thin, flexible, slippery particles, intertwined with other thicker or branched ones but not very firmly attached.
• These are released when subjected to fire.

Their dryness means that they lack those fluid particles that form water or liquids when gathered together.

These fluid particles, enclosed in the channels of hard bodies, expand them and shake the other particles with their motion.

This removes or at least diminishes their hardness.

Once these evaporate, the remaining particles tend to be more closely joined and firmly connected, causing the bodies to harden.