The Black Hole Of Calcutta

A scientist, writing of the black hole of Calcutta and its atmosphere, says. "On the 20th of June, 1756, about 8 o'clock in the evening, 146 men were forced at the point of the bayonet into a dungeon 18 feet square. They bad been but a few minutes confined in this infernal prison before every one fell into a perspiration so profuse that no idea can be formed of it. This brought on a raging thirst, the most difficult respiration and an outrageous delirium. Such was the horror of their situation that every insult that could be devised against the guard without and all the opprobrious names the viceroy and his officers could be loaded with were repeated to provoke the guard to fire upon them and terminate their sufferings. Before 11 o'clock the same evening one third of the men were dead, and before 6 next morning only 23 came out alive, but most of them in a high putrid fever. All these dreadful effects were occasioned by the want of atmospheric air and by their breathing a super abundant quantity of nitrogen emitted from their lungs. "