46 METEOROLOGICAL 
parts of the mounting of his horse’s trappings, 
emitted jets of light. 
A friend of Howard, the meteorologist, on his 
way from London to Bow on the 19th of May, 
1809, during a violent storm, distinctly saw the 
drops of rain emit light when they struck the 
eround. 
On the 25th of January, 1822, the miners of 
Freyburg informed Lampadius that the sleet which 
fell during a storm emitted light when it struck 
the earth. 
There are other similar instances ; these pheno- 
mena are evidently closely allied to electricity. 
Waterspouts (called by the French les trombes), 
according to Peltier and more recent observers, 
are sometimes observed to be lwminous when they 
happen in the night. 
A case of luminous meteoric dust 1s also on 
record :—During the eruption of Vesuvius which 
took place in 1794, a shower of extremely fine 
dust fell in Naples and its environs. It emitted 
light which, though pale, was distinctly visible at 
night. An English gentleman, who happened to 
be in a boat near Torre del Greco about this time, 
observed that his hat, those of the boatmen, and 
parts of the sails where the dust had lodged, shed 
around a sensible luminosity. 
Shooting stars, or meteoric stones, leave after 
them in the heavens a phosphoric stream of light, 
