PHOSPHORESCENCE. 67 
number of persons I have questioned upon the 
subject all agree in stating that they have noticed 
it in autumn, or towards the end of autumn, and 
the beginning of November. It cannot be termed 
a common phenomenon, as many distinguished 
naturalists have never been able to observe it; 
it is not unfrequent in the north of Germany, and 
is often witnessed in the peat districts around 
Port Carlisle, in the Lowlands of Scotland, and in 
the swampy parts of the South of England, etc. 
It was seen by Mr. Warltire, in a very curious 
form, on the road to Bromsgrove, about five miles 
from Birmingham, as noted by Dr. Priestley in the 
Appendix to his third volume of ‘ Experiments and 
Observations on Air.’ The time of observation 
was the 12th December, 1776, before daylight. 
Some countries are very remarkable for this 
curious phenomenon ; for instance, the neighbour- 
hood of Bologna, in Italy, and some parts of 
Spain and Ethiopia. According to an account 
left us by M. Beccari, an intelligent gentleman 
travellme in the evening, between eight and nine 
o’clock, in a mountainous road about ten miles 
South of Bologna, perceived a light which shone 
very strangely upon some stones on the banks of 
the Rio Verde. It appeared as a parallelopiped 
of hght, about a foot in length, and two feet above 
the stones. Its hght was so strong that he could 
plainly see by it part of a neighbouring hedge and 
