92 Major L. Blesson on the Jffnis Fatuus. 



having a very pale colour. The flame appeared and disappeared, 

 but was so mobile that I could never approach sufficiently near 

 to enable me to set fire to any thing with it. 



In the course of the same year I visited a place at Walkenried, 

 in the Hartz, where these lights are said always to occur ; they 

 were very much like those of the Neumark, and I collected 

 some of the gas in a flask. On the day after, I found by expe- 

 riment that it occasioned cloudiness in lime-water, a proof of its 

 containing carbonic acid. 



I observed accidentally another phenomenon allied to this, at 

 the Porta Westphalica, near Minden. On the 3d August 1814, 

 we played off^ a fire-work from the summit, to which we had 

 ascended during the dark, and where no ignis fatuus was visible. 

 But scarcely had we fired off the first rocket, when a number of 

 small red flames were observed around us below the summit, 

 which, however, speedily extinguished — to be succeeded by 

 others on the firing of the next rocket. 



These facts induced me to separate the ignes fatui from the 

 luminous meteors, and to free them from all connexion with 

 electricity. They are of a chemical nature, and become in- 

 flamed on coming in contact with the atmosphere, owing to the 

 nature of their constitution. 



I think it highly probable that the fires that {sometimes break 

 out in forests are caused by these lights. 



Falling Stars. — I have frequently observed on meadows and 

 fields that slimy, leek-green matter, which is commonly taken 

 for the product of falling-stars, fire-balls, &c. It speedily passes 

 into a state of putrefaction, and dissolves into a whitish foam, 

 which at length disappears. I cannot venture to speculate on 

 its formation. That this slime appears to me to be intimately 

 connected with the plants which generally surround it, although 

 I cannot deny its flattened roundish shape. Once, indeed, I 

 observed it on the bare ground, at a distance from vegetables 

 of every kind. In Finland I observed it on rocks, but they 

 were richly clothed with mosses. Whatever opinion may be 

 formed as to it, the plants, particularly the cryptogamic ones in 

 its vicinity, ought to be examined. I may add, that I observed 



