Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries 83 



growing on the wood. Such growths would dry up when exposed to 

 the air and the light would disappear. One such case has actually 

 been described by DuPuget,^^ who saw in the catacombs of Rome 

 that " the dust [Staub] in a rectangle about a decayed human body 

 was so phosphorescent that it produced a noticeable light in the 

 upper part of the grave. The phosphorescence lasted some months." 

 However, shining wood as a sepulchral lamp seems rather far fetched, 

 and many authors began to question the existence of perpetual light. 



Strange Lights 



The belief in a luminous liquid or a perpetual lamp merely re- 

 flects the much more general tendency to accept any strange tale as 

 true. Many of these tales had to do with what were commonly 

 known as meteors, well described in a book of William Fulke (1538- 

 1589) , a Doctor in Divinitie, in 1563. The first edition was entited, 

 A Goodly Gallerye with a most pleasaunt Prospect, into the garden 

 of Natural! Contemplation, to behold the naturall causes of all 

 kynde of Meteors, as wel fyery and ayery, as watry and earthly, etc. 

 (London, 1563) . The following excerpts are taken from a 1640 

 edition, called Meteors, etc. by W. F. 



Fulke first explained that: 



The meteors are divided after three manner of wayes: First, into 

 bodies perfectly and imperfectly mixed: Secondly into moist impres- 

 sions and drie: Thirdly into fiery, airy, watery and earthy. . . . [The first 

 three] are called imperfectly mixed because they are very soon changed 

 into another thing, and resolved into their proper elements of which 

 they doe most consist ... as snow into water, clouds into waters, etc. 

 . . . earthy meteors are called perfectly mixed, because they will not 

 easily be changed and resolved from that form they are in, as be stones, 

 metalls, and other minerals. 



The Aristotelian influence appears in Fulke's explanation of the 

 cause of the various phenomena. Concerning the material cause of 

 meteors, 



The matter whereof for the most part meteors doth consist, is either 

 water or earth: for out of the water proceed vapors, and out of the 

 earth come exhalations. 



Exhalations . . . because they be thinne and lighter than Vapours, 

 passe the lowest and middle Region of the aire, and are carried up even 

 to the highest Region, where for the excessive heat, by neerness of the 

 fire, they are kindled and cause many kinds of impressions: They are 



«^ Cited without a reference by J. L. M. Poiret in a footnote to p. 501 of " Ober 

 den pyrituosen Torf " {Ann. der Physik 14: 469-510, 1803) . 



