“I have not yet lost the impression which this accident made upon my mind. My sleep is frequently broken by dreaming of fire; when awake I often suppose that I smell smoke; and it is not till I am out of bed that I can convince myself that I have been deceived. It is remarkable that at the present time, and, indeed, immediately after the fire, I remembered but little of what took place; although the roof fell in, and the flames were seen at a great distance from the house, I have no recollection of noticing either; yet I was more than once on different parts of the roof, giving directions to the firemen.” He thus accounts for the origin of the fire:— “Upon making known the situation of things as they stood previous to the fire, it was suggested by some one that it might have originated thus. I have before said that a great quantity of carpeting, old and new, lay in the closet. An old Brussels carpet was folded up and placed on the floor of the closet; on this lay a roll of new Scotch carpet; and the whole was surmounted by a number of empty paper hat-boxes. This being the state of things, and the closet having no ceiling, it is very probable that during the heavy rains which fell a short time previous, some of the water might penetrate through the roof and wet the carpets. The rain was succeeded by some of the hottest weather I ever remember. The heat immediately under the slates would be very great; and we were told that Brussels carpeting, which is composed partly of hemp and partly of wool, if wet and afterwards exposed to heat, will ferment and fire spontaneously, in the manner that hay sometimes does. This opinion, upon inquiry, we found to be confirmed by experience. A ship in the Mediterranean took fire from the fermentation of some wet ropes stowed in the hold. A relation of ours, a builder, had his premises partly destroyed by the fermentation of a quantity of hair for plaster, placed under a shed. He knows this to have been the cause, from the circumstance of the hair’s smoking having been noticed the day preceding.” He discusses the question of insurance:—