The New Student's Reference Work/Spontaneous Combustion

Spontaneous Combustion, or burning without the application of fire, sometimes occurs in mineral and other substances. Charcoal, if saturated with oil, may become so heated as to burn, and coals containing iron pyrites, when wet, will catch fire. Phosphorus, when dry, ignites easily, and has been known to melt and burn in a room where the temperature was only 70°, so that in hot weather a fire may be started by large packages of matches. Hay, cotton, tow, flax, rags, straw, leaves, if collected in large quantities, when damp undergo fermentation, which gives off sometimes enough heat to burn. The cotton-rags and waste used in wiping oiled machinery and lamps have probably started many unexplained fires. Spontaneous combustion of the human body has been thought to occur in a number of cases, usually where the individual was an habitual drinker, but is now considered doubtful. Liebig says a dead body filled with alcohol may burn of itself, but not a living one, in which the blood is circulating. See Letters on Chemistry by Liebig.