that have been brought to a white heat in a
great fire of logs.

The familiar claim is made that the
performance puzzles scientists, and that no
satisfactory solution has yet been discovered. We
are about to see that for two or three hundred
years the same claims have been made by a
long line of more or less clever public
performers in Europe and America.




CHAPTER TWO

WATTON'S SHIP-SWABBER ``FROM THE
INDIES.''--RICHARDSON, 1667--DE
HEITERKEIT, 1713.--ROBERT POWELL, 1718-
1780.--DUFOUR, 1783.--QUACKENSALBER, 1794.

The earliest mention I have found of a public
fire-eater in England is in the correspondence
of Sir Henry Watton, under date of
June 3rd, 1633. He speaks of an Englishman
``like some swabber of a ship, come from the
Indies, where he has learned to eat fire as
familiarly as ever I saw any eat cakes, even
whole glowing brands, which he will crush with
his teeth and swallow.'' This was shown in