Major L. Blesson on the Ignis Fatuus. 93 



this jelly, in a forest under a fir-tree, where there was no possi- 

 bility of its having fallen from the sky *. 



Thunder Storm.^—On ascending a mountain, which rises ra- 

 ther more than 2000 feet above Teschen, I encountered a 

 storm, concerning which the following particulars are not with- 

 out interest. The wind blew from the south, and, shortly after 

 I commenced my ascent, envelloped the upper part of the 

 mountain in clouds. The oppressive feel of the air seemed to 

 announce a coming thunder-storm, but hitherto neither thunder 

 nor lightning had occurred. The nearer I approached to the 

 clouds, the darker was their colour, but still the sun shone 

 brightly upon Teschen. The clouds, as seen from below, which 

 exhibited a remarkable rotatory motion, appeared sharply 

 bounded, and I was therefore surprised, when I came near to 

 them, to find, as usual, only a gradually denser and denser cloud, 

 which speedily wet me through. A particular rotatory wind 

 appeared to prevail in this region (above half-way up the 

 mountain), occasioning a piercing cold, which was the more 

 striking, as contrasted with the sultry heat and stillness below 

 the clouds. 



I had hardly entered the denser part of the cloud, where it 

 was so dark, that I could with difficulty distinguish an object 

 at my foot — (I name this dark, because I do not know any 

 other expression for it ; it is not, however, want of light ; we 

 have a white veil before us, which is constantly moving with a 

 rotatory motion, which we cannot compare with any thing else). 

 I was scarcely in the cloud before I felt throughout my whole 

 body a kind of expansive tension, which was excessively op- 

 pressive, and seemed to affect the walking of my companion, 

 a poodle dog, even more than it did myself. The hair ap- 

 peared to bristle up, and it seemed to me as if something was 

 drawn out of the whole of my body. But this electric tension 

 was of a very different character from that from an isolator. I 

 bent down, in order to see the grass that surrounded me, and 

 on which no dew was observed, — when I was suddenly envel- 

 loped in a bright sea of light, with a yellow lustre, and per- 



• The so called Star-jelly is said to be a kind of fungus, Actiomjce Hor- 

 kelli — Vide Oken Isis, 1830, )i.l35. 



