68 METEOROLOGICAL 
the water of the river. On examining it a little 
nearer, he was surprised to find that the hght be- 
came paler, and when he came to the place itself, 
it quite vanished. No smell or other mark of fire 
was observed at the place where this hight shone. 
Another gentleman informed M. Beccari that 
he had seen the same light five or six different 
times, in spring and autumn, always of the same 
shape, and in the very same place. 
Dr. Shaw, in his ‘Travels tothe Holy Land,’ states 
that an ignis fatwus appeared to him in the val- 
ley of Mount Ephraim, and attended him and his 
company for more than an hour. Sometimes it 
appeared globular, at others it spread to such a 
degree as to involve the whole company in a pale, 
inoffensive light ; then contracted itself, and sud- 
denly disappeared, but in less than a minute it 
would appear again; sometimes running swiftly 
along, it would expand itself at certain intervals 
over two or three acres of the adjacent mountains. 
Dr. Priestley has given an account of what some 
look upon to have been an artificial Well-o’-the- 
wisp. A gentleman, who had been making elec- 
trical experiments for a whole afternoon in a small 
room, on going out of it, vbserved a flame follow- 
ing him at some little distance. In this case, how- 
ever, there seems to have been a difference between 
the artificial ignis fatuus and that met with in 
nature, for the flame followed the gentleman as 
