Other instances of endurance are merely pretended. In country places, a conjurer sometimes appears in the streets, professing that he is able to eat fire; and yet he only rolls together a ball of flax or hemp, lights it, rolls round it some more of the same material, slips it cunningly into his mouth, and breathes through it to revive the flame; and so long as he inspires the air through the nostrils, and not through the mouth, he suffers no injury. A performer, named Richardson, in the seventeenth century, pretended to pour melted lead upon his tongue; but it is probable that he used the fusible metal formed of bismuth, tin, and lead, which melts at a low temperature, and which the writer has seen fused on a card, and poured into the hand with impunity by a person accustomed to handle hot substances. Not many years ago, a man named Chaubert professed to be incombustible; but it has been proved that the human body is capable of bearing a very high degree of heat. Men of unquestionable integrity have surpassed all his wonders. Sir Charles Blagden exposed himself in a heated room where the heat was one or two degrees above 260°, and remained eight minutes in this situation. Eggs and a beef-steak were placed on a tin frame, near the thermometer, and in the space of twenty minutes the eggs were roasted quite hard, and in forty-seven minutes the steak was not only dressed, but almost dry. Another beef-steak, similarly placed, was rather over-done in thirty-three minutes. Chantrey, the celebrated sculptor, accompanied by five or six friends, also entered a furnace, and, after remaining two minutes, brought out a thermometer which stood at 320°. Some pain was experienced in this experiment, but it placed beyond all doubt that the human body has a remarkable power of enduring heat. Chaubert excited much wonder by taking phosphorus into his mouth; but, as that substance, when deprived of air, will not burn, he always closed his lips, and retired to eject the phosphorus immediately afterwards. We turn now from the resistance of heat by chemical means, to some striking examples of its power.