Fire in the Candle Flame

Fire in Those that Heat Up but Do Not Shine Like Enclosed Hay

[4.092]

The particles of some spirit or liquid can sometimes ignite fire by passing through the channels of a hard or liquid body.

This is demonstrated by:

• wet hay enclosed in a space
• lime sprinkled with water
• all kinds of fermentations
• several chemical liquids known to alchemists which heat up and sometimes even catch fire when mixed together.

Fresh hay, if stored before drying, gradually heats up and spontaneously catches fire.

The cause is similar to how many spirits or juices that, accustomed to flowing through the pores of green plants from their roots to their tips, stay for some time in excised herbs.

If these herbs are enclosed in a narrow space, their juices migrate from one herb to another. They find many channels to be slightly narrower in the already drying herbs. These have less globules of the air-aether.

Therefore, flowing through these channels, they surround only the fire-aether which swiftly drives them to acquire the agitation of fire.

Let:

• the space between two bodies B and C represent one of the channels of a green herb
• small loops 1, 2, 3 which surround it be the particles of juices or spirits usually conveyed by air-aether globules through such channels
• the space between bodies D and E is another narrower channel of a drying herb, which, traversing it, the same particles 1, 2, 3 can no longer surround the air-aether but can only have the first around them

They follow a moderate motion of the air-aether between B and C but a very swift motion of the first between D and E.

It does not matter that only a very small quantity of this fire-aether is found around them.

It is enough that they adhere to it entirely.

This is similar to a ship descending in a stream. It easily follows the stream’s course when it is so narrow that it almost touches its banks on both sides, just as it does when it is widest.

Therefore, such swiftly moving particles have much more power to separate the particles of surrounding bodies than the fire-aether itself. This is similar to a ship colliding with a bridge or obstacle shakes it more forcefully than the water of the river from which it is carried away.

Therefore, rushing into the denser particles of the hay, they easily separate them from each other, especially when many of them rush from different sides.

When they separate enough of them and carry them away, there is fire. When they merely shake and do not yet have the power to separate many from each other, they slowly heat and spoil the hay.

Fire In Lime Sprinkled with Water and Others.

[4.093]

When a hard body is heated by the addition of some liquid, it happens because many of its channels are of such a size that only the particles of this liquid, surrounded by the matter of the first element, can pass through.

I think a similar explanation applies when one liquid is poured into another.

One of them always consists of ramified particles, somehow intertwined and knotted, and thus takes the place of a hard body, as previously understood about the exhalations themselves.

How Fire can be Ignited in the Cavities of the Earth

[4.094]

Inside the Earth’s cavities, the sharp spirits of dense exhalations can penetrate as to ignite flames within them.

The fragments of rocks or flint are worn away by the secret flow of water or other causes which fall from the vaults of the cavities to the substrate soil.

These can both explosively expel intercepted air and ignite fire by the collision of flint.

Once one body has conceived fire, it easily communicates it to other nearby bodies suitable for receiving it.

For the particles of fire, meeting the particles of those bodies, move them and carry them away. However, this pertains more to the preservation of fire than its generation, which will be discussed later.

How a Candle Burns

[4.095]

A lit candle AB is in space CDE, through which its flame extends. Many particles of wax or any other oily material from which this candle is made float, as well as many air-aether globules.

However, both these and those have the fire-aether so innate in them that they are carried away by its motion.

Although they often touch and push each other, they do not support each other from every side, as they usually do in places where there is no fire.

How Fire is Sustained in it.

[4.096] The fire-aether is abundantly present in this flame.

It always tends to escape from the place where it is because it moves very swiftly.

It tends to rise upward away from the center of the Earth because it is lighter than the air-aether globules themselves, which occupy the meatus of the air.

Both these air-aether globules and all the earth-aether particles of the surrounding air try to descend into its place.

Therefore, they would immediately smother the flame if it consisted only of the fire-aether.

However, the terrestrial particles, constantly emanating from the wick FG, as soon as they are immersed in the fire-aether, follow its course.

They repel the air particles ready to descend into the flame and thus preserve the fire.

Why a Candle’s Flame becomes pointed, and smoke issues from it.

[4.097] Since these tend mainly upward, it happens that the flame is usually pointed.

They act much faster than the air particles they repel. And so, they cannot be hindered by them from proceeding further towards H, where they gradually deposit their agitation and turn into smoke.

How air and other bodies feed the flame.

[4.098]

If the smoke could not find any space in the entire air, because there is no vacuum anywhere except where it exits from the flame, it would return with a circular motion towards it.

Specifically, as the smoke ascends to H, it displaces the air towards I and K. This air, by licking the tip of the candle B and the roots of the wick F, approaches the flame and contributes to its sustenance.

However, this alone would not be enough, due to the thinness of its parts, unless it brought with it many particles of wax, agitated by the heat of the fire, through the wick. Thus, the flame must be constantly renewed to be preserved, and it remains not the same, as rivers to which new waters constantly flow.

The Circular motion of air towards fire

[4.099]

The circular motion of air and smoke can be experienced whenever a large fire is kindled in a closed room.

For if the room is closed in such a way that, besides the chimney pipe through which the smoke exits, only one opening is left, a strong wind will be felt continuously, through this opening, heading towards the fire, to the place where the smoke is going.

Those things that extinguish fire

[4.100]

Two things are required to preserve fire:

1. There should be terrestrial particles in it.

These earth-aether particles are propelled by the fire-aether and have the power to prevent the fire from being suffocated by air or other liquids placed above it.

I only speak of liquids placed above the fire because, carried solely by their gravity towards it, there is no danger of being extinguished by those beneath it.

Thus, the flame of an inverted candle is smothered by its wax.

Conversely, other fires can be made in which there are terrestrial particles so solid, so many, and so vibrated with such force that they repel water poured on them and cannot be extinguished by it.

What is Required for a Body to Sustain Fire?

2. The fire should adhere to some body from which new matter can access it, to the place where the smoke is going.

Therefore, this body must have many thin earth-aether particles, depending on the ratio of preserving fire.

They must be so joined together, either among themselves or even with thicker ones, so that they can be separated, driven by the particles of that fire:

• from each other and
• from the neighboring air-aether globules
  • This would convert them into fire.

Why Does the flame of wine spirit not burn linen?

[4.102]

The particles of this body must be sufficiently thin, depending on the ratio of preserving fire.

For example, if the spirit of wine ignites a linen cloth, this very fine flame will consume all the spirit of wine but will not touch the linen because its particles are not thin enough to be moved by it.

[4.103] Why wine spirit ignites very easily.

The spirit of wine easily feeds the flame because it consists only of very thin particles and has some branches so short and flexible that they do not adhere to each other.

In that case, the spirit would turn into oil. However, they are arranged in such a way that they leave many extremely small spaces around them, which can be occupied not by the globules of the second element but only by the matter of the first.

Why water is difficult.

[4.104]

On the other hand, water seems very adverse to fire because it consists of particles that are thicker, smoother, and glossier.

Therefore, nothing hinders the air-aether globules from surrounding and following it everywhere. Furthermore, being flexible, it easily enters the channels of bodies that burn, and, by repelling the particles of fire, prevents others from igniting.

Why is the force of large fires increased by water or salts thrown in?

[4.105]

However, some bodies are such that particles of water thrown into them help fire because, bouncing back with force, they ignite themselves.

Hence, even with a small amount of water thrown into large flames, they are increased.

Salts are more effective than water. Their particles are rigid and oblong. They vibrate like spicules in the flame. They have great force to shake their minutiae by striking other bodies. Therefore, they are usually added to melt metals.

What kind of bodies easily burn?

[4.106]

Things commonly used for feeding fire, such as wood and the like, consist of various particles.

Some of these are very fine. Others are slightly thicker or a lot thicker. Most of them are branched with many meatus interlacing them.

These branches allow the particles of fire to enter these channels and quickly move the finest particles first, and then the moderate ones. With the help of both, they move the thicker ones.

Thus, they swiftly shake off the air-aether globules, first from narrower intervals and then from the remaining ones.

They carry all of the air-aether away except for the thickest ones, from which ashes are made.

Why some things ignite, and others do not.

[4.107]

When such particles exit from the burning body so numerously that they have the power to expel the air-aether globules from some adjacent space, they fill that space with flame.

If they are fewer, a flame without smoke is produced. This flame may gradually creep through the meatus of its funnel, finding material to consume.

This is observed in those cords or wicks used in war for igniting gunpowder.

Why Does Fire Last a while in embers?

[4.108]

If the fire has no branched material around it, then it is not preserved.

It is only preserved because the pores of its material body need some time to dissolve all its earth-aether particles so that the fire-aether can free itself.

Coals, covered with ashes, retain fire for many hours solely because its fire is inherent in very thin and branched [earth-aeter] particles.

Those particles move very quickly. But they can only be subdivided and separated one after another.