Part 37

At Naples, on the sixteenth of December, 1737, early in the evening, a light was observed in the north, as if the air was on fire, and flashing. Its intenseness gradually increasing, about seven o’clock it spread to the westward. Its greatest hight was about sixty-five degrees. Its extremities were unequally jagged and scattered, and followed the course of the westerly wind; so that for a few hours it spread considerably wider, yet without ever extending to the zenith. About eight o’clock, a very regular arch, of a parabolic figure, was seen to rise gently to two degrees of rectangular elevation, and to twenty degrees of horizontal amplitude. At ten the intenseness of the color disappeared; and by midnight not any traces of this phenomenon were left. It was seen throughout Italy, as the subsequent accounts will show. At Padua, on the appearance of this extraordinary meteor, the air was calm, and the barometer remarkably high. At five in the afternoon a blackish zone, with its upper limb of a sky-color, appeared near the horizon; and above this zone was another, very luminous, resembling the dawn pretty far advanced. The highest zone was of a red, fiery color. A little after six o’clock, the upper parts of these zones emitted an abundance of red streamings, or rays; their vivid color being occasionally intermixed with whitish and dark spots. In a few seconds after, there issued from the west, a red and very bright column, which ascended to the third part of the heavens, and a little after became curved like a rainbow. At half past eight, almost instantaneously, the bright zone, from eight degrees west to fifty degrees east, became more vivid, and rose higher; and above this appeared another and larger one, of a red, fiery color, with several successive streamings tending upward, and exceeding sixty degrees of altitude; the western part having assumed the form of a thin cloud. At midnight these splendid lights disappeared entirely. At Bononia, this surprising meteor spread to such an extent as to occupy about one hundred and forty degrees of the heavens. Its light was so vivid that houses could be distinguished, at eight in the evening, at a very considerable distance; and these were so reddened, that many persons thought there was a fire in the neighborhood. At that time the aurora formed itself into a concave arch toward the horizon; and in half an hour, at its eastern limit, a pyramid was displayed, of a more intense color toward the north, from the center of which there shot up vertically a streak of light, between a white and a yellow color. A very dark, narrow cloud crossed the whole phenomenon, and terminated in the pyramid. At the upper part, a very considerable tract of the heavens was enlightened by a very vivid red light, which was interrupted by several streaks or columns of a bright yellowish light. These streamings shot up vertically, and parallel to each other, the narrow cloud seeming to serve them as a basis. Under the cloud there issued forth two tails of a whitish light, hanging downward on a basis of a weak red, and seeming to kindle and dart the light downward. A white streak, which passed across these two tails, and extended from one end of the phenomenon to the other, in a position almost parallel to the above-mentioned cloud, gave a splendid effect to the whole. This surprising and beautiful meteor disappeared a short time after nine o’clock; but an abundance of falling stars were afterward seen in the south.

Similar observations were made at Rome; but in Great Britain, where this phenomenon was likewise seen, different appearances were displayed. At Edinburgh, at six in the evening, the sky appeared to be in flames. An arch of red light reached from the west, over the zenith, to the east, its northern border being tinged with a color approaching to blue. This aurora did not first form in the north, as usually happens, and after forming an arch there, rise toward the zenith; neither did the light shiver, and spread itself, by sudden jerks, over the hemisphere, as is common, but it gradually and gently stole along the face of the heavens, till it had covered the whole hemisphere: this alarmed the vulgar, and was indeed a strange sight. At Rosehill, in Sussex, it appeared as a strong and very steady light, nearly of the color of red ocher. It did not dart or flash, but kept a steady course against the wind, which blew fresh from the south-west. It began in the north-north-west, in the form of a pillar of light, at a quarter past six in the evening: in about ten minutes a fourth part of it divided from the rest, and never joined again. In ten minutes more it described an arch, but did not join at the top; and at seven o’clock it formed a bow, disappearing soon after. It was lightest and reddest at the horizon, and gave as much light as a full moon.

LUMINOUS ARCHES.

In the month of March, 1774, a very beautiful luminous arch was seen at Buxton. It was white, inclining to yellow: and its breadth in the crown was apparently equal to that of the rainbow. As it approached the horizon, each leg of the arch became gradually broader. It was stationary and free from any sensible coruscations. Its direction was from north-east to south-west; and its crown or most elevated part, not far from the zenith. This phenomenon lasted about half an hour.

The grandest spectacle of this kind which appears to have been seen in Great Britain, was observed at Leeds, in Yorkshire, on the twelfth of April, 1783, between the hours of nine and ten at night. A broad arch of a bright pale yellow, and having an apparent breadth of about fifteen degrees, arose in the heavens, and passed considerably south of the zenith. Such was its varied density, that it appeared to consist of small columns of light, having a sensible motion. After about ten minutes, innumerable bright coruscations shot out at right angles from its northern edge, elongating themselves more and more till they had nearly reached the northern horizon. As they descended, their extremities were tipped with an elegant crimson, such as is produced by the electric spark in an exhausted tube. After some time this beautiful northern light ceased to shoot, and, forming a line of bright yellow clouds, which extended horizontally about the fourth of a circle, its greatest portion, which darted from this arch toward the north, as well as the cloudlike and more stationary aurora, became so dense as to hide the stars from view. The moon was eleven days old, and shone brightly during this scene, but did not eclipse the splendor of these coruscations. The wind was in the north, a little inclined to the east. A similar phenomenon was observed at Leeds on the twenty-sixth of the same month. From a mass or broad column of light in the west, issued three luminous arches, each of which made a different angle with the horizon. They had not been viewed many minutes when they were rendered invisible by a general blaze of =aurora borealis=, which possessed the space just before occupied by these arches.

IGNES FATUI, OR MOCK FIRES.

These meteors, denominated by the vulgar, Will-with-a-wisp, and Jack-with-a-lantern, and at sea or on the coast, mariner’s lights, or St. Helmo’s fires, are now considered as real exhalations from the earth, produced by gas, vapor, or some other attenuated substance, emanating from vegetable, animal or mineral materials, and combined with the matter of light or heat, or both. Instead of being dense or solid, they are uniformly rare and subtile; and, instead of originating in the loftiest regions of the atmosphere, or beyond its range, are generated for the greater part in low, marshy plains or valleys. To the fearful and superstitious, they are a source of as much terror as the nobler and sublimer meteors which have just been contemplated; and it is probable that they have occasionally been the source of real and extensive damage, when in a state of actual combustion, and that they have still more frequently seduced a timid and benighted traveler into dangerous bogs and quagmires.

In Italy, in the Bolognese territory, they are so frequent, in the morassy grounds, that they are to be seen every night, some of them affording as much light as a kindled torch, and others not being larger than the flame of a candle, but all of them so luminous as to shed a luster on the surrounding objects. They are constantly in motion, but this motion is various and uncertain. They sometimes rise and at other times sink, sometimes suddenly disappearing, and appearing again in an instant in some other place. They usually hover about six feet from the ground, differing both in figure and size, and spreading out and contracting themselves alternately. Sometimes they break to appearance into two parts, soon after uniting again in one body, and at intervals float like waves, letting fall portions of ignited matter, like sparks from a fire. They are more frequently observed in winter than in summer, and cast the strongest light in rainy and moist weather. They are most friendly to the banks of brooks and rivers, and to morasses; but they are likewise seen on elevated grounds, where they are, however, of a comparatively diminutive size.

In the month of March, 1728, a traveler being in a mountainous road, about ten miles south of Bononia, perceived, as he approached the river Riovedere, between eight and nine in the evening, a light shining very brightly on some stones which lay on the banks. It was elevated about two feet above them; its figure describing a parallelopiped, more than a foot in length, and about six inches high, its longest side lying parallel to the horizon. Its light was so strong that he could distinguish by it very plainly a part of a neighboring hedge, and the water in the river. On a near approach, it changed from a bright red to a yellowish color, and on drawing still nearer, became pale; but when the observer reached the spot it vanished. On his stepping back, he not only saw it again, but found that the further he receded, the stronger and more luminous it became. This light was afterward seen several times, both in spring and autumn, precisely at the same spot, and preserving the same shape.

On the twelfth of December, 1776, several very remarkable =ignes fatui= were observed on the road to Bromsgrove, five miles from Birmingham, in England, a little before daylight. A great many of these lights were playing in an adjacent field, in different directions; from some of which there suddenly sprang up bright branches of light, somewhat resembling the explosion of a rocket, filled with many brilliant stars, if, in the case of the latter, the discharge be supposed to be upward, or vertical, instead of taking the usual direction. The hedge, and the trees on each side, were strongly illuminated. This appearance continued a few seconds only, when the =ignes fatui= played as before. The spectator was not sufficiently near to observe whether the apparent explosions were attended with any report.

In the month of December, 1693, between the twenty-fourth and thirtieth, a fiery exhalation, without doubt generated in the same way with the meteors described above, set fire to sixteen ricks of hay, and two barns filled with corn and hay, at the village of Hartech, in Pembrokeshire. It had frequently been seen before, proceeding from the sea, and in these instances lasted for a fortnight or three weeks. It not only fired the hay, but poisoned the grass, for the extent of a mile, so as to induce a distemper among the cattle. It was a weak blue flame, easily extinguished, and did not in the least burn any of the men who interposed their endeavors to save the hay, although they ventured, not only close to it, but sometimes into it. All the damage sustained happened constantly in the night.

Belonging to this class of meteors is the =draco volans=, a fiery exhalation, frequent in marshy and cold countries. It is most common in summer; and, although principally seen playing near the banks of rivers, or in boggy places, still it sometimes mounts up to a considerable hight in the air, to the no small terror of the amazed beholders. Its appearance is that of an oblong (sometimes roundish) fiery body, with a long tail. It is entirely harmless, frequently sticking to the hands and clothes of the spectators, without doing them the least injury.

SPECTER OF THE BROCKEN.

This is one of those curious and interesting atmospheric phenomena, or deceptions, which proceed from one common cause, an irregularity in the tenuity of the atmospheric fluid. This fluid is commonly of an homogeneous or equable tenuity, and consequently suffers the rays of the sun to penetrate it without any obstruction or change; but is at times irregular, and composed of parts of bodies of a denser medium than its general texture and constitution. Under these circumstances, the fluent ray, if it do not enter the denser medium in a direct or perpendicular line, will be either reflected, or refracted, or both; and the object surveyed through it, will assume a new, and, not unfrequently, a grotesque or highly magnified appearance.

The specter of the Brocken is an aerial figure which is sometimes seen among the Hartz mountains in Hanover. The phenomenon has been witnessed by various travelers, and among them by M. Haue, from whose relation the following particulars are extracted. “Having ascended the Brocken [mountain] for the thirtieth time, I was at length so fortunate as to have the pleasure of seeing this phenomenon. The sun rose about four o’clock, and the atmosphere being quite serene toward the east, its rays could pass without any obstruction over the Heinrichshohe mountain. In the south-west, however, toward the mountain Achtermannshohe, a brisk west wind carried before it thin transparent vapors. About a quarter past four, I looked round, to see whether the atmosphere would permit me to have a free prospect to the south-west, when I observed, at a very great distance toward the Achtermannshohe, a human figure of monstrous size! A violent gust of wind having almost carried away my hat, I clapped my hand to it; and in moving my hand toward my head, the colossal figure did the same.

“The pleasure which I felt at this discovery can hardly be described; for I had already walked many a weary step in the hope of seeing this shadowy image, without being able to gratify my curiosity. I immediately made another movement, by bending my body, and the colossal figure before me repeated it. I was desirous of doing the same once more, but my colossus had vanished. I remained in the same position, waiting to see whether it would return; and in a few minutes it again made its appearance on the Achtermannshohe. I then called the landlord of the neighboring inn, and having both taken the position which I had taken alone, we looked toward the Achtermannshohe, but did not perceive anything. We had not, however, stood long, when two such colossal figures were formed over the above eminence, [as represented in the cut,] which repeated their compliments by bending their bodies as we did, after which they vanished. We retained our position, kept our eyes fixed on the spot, and in a little time the two figures again stood before us, and were joined by a third, [that of a traveler who then came up and joined the party.] Every movement made by us, these figures imitated; but with this difference, that the phenomenon was sometimes weak and faint, sometimes strong and well defined.”

[Illustration: SPECTER OF THE BROCKEN.]

In Clarke’s “Survey of the Lakes,” a phenomenon similar to that of the specter of the Brocken, is recorded to have been observed in the years 1743 and 1744, on Souter-Fell, a mountain in Cumberland. It excited much conversation and alarm at the time, and exposed to great ridicule those who asserted they had witnessed it. It is, however, too well attested not to deserve a short notice here, and may be referred to the same causes by which the above aerial images on the Brocken mountain were produced. The relation is as follows. Souter-Fell is a mountain about half a mile in hight, inclosed on the north and west sides by precipitous rocks, but somewhat more open on the east, and easier of access. At Wilton Hall, within half a mile of this mountain, on a summer’s evening, in the year 1743, a farmer and his servant, sitting at the door, saw the figure of a man with a dog, pursuing some horses along Souter-Fell side, a place so steep that a horse could scarcely travel on it. They appeared to run at a very great pace, till they got out of sight at the lower end of the fell. On the following morning the farmer and his servant ascended the steep side of the mountain, in full expectation that they should find the man lying dead, being persuaded that the swiftness with which he ran must have killed him, and imagining also that they should pick up some of the shoes which they thought the horses must have lost, in galloping at so furious a rate. They were, however, disappointed in these expectations, as not the least vestige of either man or horses could be discovered, not so much, even, as the mark of a horse’s hoof on the turf.

On the twenty-third of June, of the following year, 1744, about half past seven in the evening, the same servant, then residing at Blakehills, at an equal distance from the mountain, being in a field in front of the farm-house, saw a troop of horsemen riding on Souter-Fell side in pretty close ranks, and at a brisk pace. Having observed them for some time, he called out his young master, who before the spot was pointed out to him, discovered the aerial troopers; and this phenomenon was shortly after witnessed by the whole of the family. The visionary horsemen appeared to come from the lowest part of Souter-Fell, and were visible at a place called Knott: they then moved in regular troops along the side of the fell, till they came opposite to Blakehills, when they went over the mountain. They thus described a kind of curvilinear path, and their first as well as their last appearance, was bounded by the foot of the mountain. Their pace was that of a regular swift walk, and they were seen for upward of two hours, when darkness intervened. Several troops were seen in succession, and frequently the last, or last but one in the troop, would quit his position, gallop to the front, and then observe the same pace with the others. The same change was visible to all the spectators; and the sight of this phenomenon was not confined to Blakehills, but was witnessed by the inhabitants of the cottages within a mile. It was attested before a magistrate by the two above-cited individuals in the month of July, 1745. Twenty-six persons are said in the attestation to have witnessed the march of these aerial travelers.

It should be remarked that these appearances were observed on the eve of the rebellion, when troops of horsemen might be privately exercising; and as the imitative powers of the specter of the Brocken demonstrate that the actions of human beings are sometimes pictured in the clouds, it seems highly probable, on a consideration of all the circumstances of this latter phenomenon on Souter-Fell, that certain thin vapors must have hovered round the summit of the mountain when the appearances were observed. It is also probable that these vapors may have been impressed with the shadowy forms which seem to “imitate humanity,” by a particular operation of the sun’s rays, united with some singular but unknown refractive combinations then taking place in the atmosphere.

THE MIRAGE.

This very curious phenomenon, which was remarked by M. Monge, one of the French savans belonging to the institute of Cairo, in the hot and sandy desert between Alexandria and that city, is described by him as resulting from an inverted image of the cerulean sky intermixed with the ground scenery, the neighboring villages appearing to be surrounded with a most beautiful sheet of water, and to exist, like islands, in its liquid expanse, tantalizing the eye by an unfaithful representation of what the thirsty traveler earnestly desires.

Doctor Clarke, in his interesting travels, introduces the following animated description of this phenomenon. “Here [at the village of Utko] we procured asses for our party, and, setting out for Rosetta, began to recross the desert, appearing like an ocean of sand, but flatter and firmer as to its surface, than before. The Arabs, uttering their harsh, guttural language, ran chattering by the side of our asses; until some of them calling out _‘Raschid!’_ we perceived its domes and turrets, apparently upon the opposite side of an immense lake or sea, that covered all the intervening space between us and the city. Not having in my own mind, at the time, any doubt as to the certainty of its being water, and seeing the tall minarets and buildings of Rosetta, with all its groves of dates and sycamores, as perfectly reflected by it as by a mirror, insomuch that even the minutest detail of the architecture and of the trees might have been thence delineated, I applied to the Arabs to be informed in what manner we were to pass the water. Our interpreter, although a Greek, and therefore likely to have been informed of such a phenomenon, was as fully convinced as any of us, that we were drawing near to the water’s edge, and became indignant, when the Arabs maintained, that within an hour we should reach Rosetta, by crossing the sands in the direct line we then pursued, and that there was no water. ‘What!’ said he, giving way to his impatience, ‘do you suppose me an idiot, to be persuaded contrary to the evidence of my senses?’ The Arabs, smiling, soon pacified him, and completely astonished the whole party, by desiring us to look back at the desert we had already passed, where we beheld a precisely similar appearance. It was, in fact, _the mirage_, a prodigy to which all of us were then strangers, although it afterward became more familiar. Yet upon no future occasion did we ever behold this extraordinary illusion so marvelously displayed. The view of it afforded us ideas of the horrible despondency to which travelers must sometimes be exposed, who, in traversing the interminable desert, destitute of water, and perishing with thirst, have sometimes this deceitful prospect before their eyes.”

This appearance is often seen, when the sun shines, upon the extensive flat sand upon the shores of the Bristol channel, in Somersetshire, and probably on the sea-shore in other parts of England.

FATA MORGANA.

“As when a shepherd of the Hebride isles, Placed far amid the melancholy main, (Whether it be lone fancy him beguiles, Or that aerial beings sometimes deign To stand embodied to our senses plain,) Sees on the naked hill, or valley low, The whilst in ocean Phœbus dips his wain, A vast assemblage moving to and fro; Then all at once in air dissolves the wondrous show.”—THOMSON.