prevalent Disorders^ S^c^ with Volcanic Emanations, 301 



a ball of fire was reported to have been seen ; that on the fol- 

 lowing night the sky was red as blood, and on the night after 

 appeared the finest aurora he ever saw. (P. T., vol. xlvi.) 

 Several days before the shock at London (March 2.), there 

 were reddish bows in the air, which took the same direction as 

 the shock, {Ibid.) The aurora also accompanied the earthquake 

 of Aug. 23. at Spalding. {Ibid.) Sir W. Hamilton mentions 

 that for many hours after the eruption of Vesuvius, in 1799, 

 the air " was Jilled with meteors^ such as are vulgarly called 

 falling stars : they shot generally in a horizontal direction, 

 leaving a luminous trace behind them, but which quickly dis- 

 appeared. The night was remarkably fine, starlight, and 

 without a cloud." Ashes fell that night at Manfredonia, 100 

 miles from Vesuvius, two hours after the eruption. (P. J*., 1780.) 

 The volcanic lightning and electrical phenomena, on that 

 occasion, are mentioned as truly astonishing. Mr. Poulett 

 Scrope has a similar remark respecting the eruption of 1822. 

 {Considerations on Volcanoes^ p. 81.) During the eruption of 

 1794, it is stated that "out of these gigantic and volcanic 

 clouds, besides the lightning, both during this eruption and 

 that of 1779, I have, says Sir W. Hamilton, with many others, 

 seen balls of fire issue, and some of a considerable magnitude, 

 which, bursting in the air, produced nearly the same effect as 

 that from the air-balloons in fireworks, the electric fire that 

 came out having the appearance of the serpents with which 

 those firework balloons are filled." (P. T., 1795.) Sir D. 

 Brewster witnessed an aurora in combination with a thunder 

 storm at Belleville, Inverness-shire, on Aug. 29. 1821, 9J p.m. 

 (Encyc. Brit.^ viii. 623., 7th ed.) 



On July 13. 1833, occurred an earthquake at Sutton Ash- 

 field, Staffordshire, and it was followed on the 14th by one of 

 the most frightful thunder storms ever known there. That 

 electrical phenomena are connected with earthquakes may be 

 supposed from the fact that, on July 19. 1785, there happened 

 a thunder storm without lightning at Coldstream, which killed 

 a man and some horses ; being followed, on August 1 1., by a 

 severe shock of earthquake. (P. T., 1787.) Count Hippo- 

 lito has recorded (see Phil. Trans.^ vol.lxxiii.) that, on March 

 28. 1783, at the time of the earthquake in Calabria, flames 

 rose from the ground, and, after the great concussion, towards 

 the east a whitish flame rose, in a slanting direction, and had 

 the appearance of electric fire. It was seen for two hours. 



Hitherto, we have not considered the case of meteorites, 

 but by almost all writers they are considered to have the 

 same origin as meteors. The coincidences are the same 

 in both cases. In 1812, on April 26., a meteor, accom- 



