The Seventeenth Century 133 



Sea, also those lumiyious meteors which in great Storms at Sea are seen 

 to cleave to the tops of Maine Masts, and at the Sterns of Ships, by the 

 Ancients call'd Castor and Pollux, by our English-men corpus-Ants, and 

 very probably is the same with that meteor we call ignis fatuus, of which, 

 as also concerning the Light seen upon the impressions of footings on the 

 Sa7id upon Sea-shores: we shall shortly speak more. 



Simpson's explanation of the light from all the above phenomena 

 was the same, fermentation involving acid and sulphur. The glow 

 of a cat's eye or 



. . . the striking Flame or Light from a Cats back by frication in the 

 dark . . . may (for ought we know) be done naturally by a brisk, but 

 slender woven Fermentation, perform'd either in the texture of their 

 eyes, or rather in the very fabrick of their animal Spirits. . . . 



In the next place we come to give the reasons of Light in rotten Wood, 

 and dry'd Fish, &c. where we are to observe, that as in the causes of 

 Light aforesaid, from the principles of Acid and Sulphur, variously put 

 into motion, being excited into a Fermentation divers ways: So amongst 

 the rest, this by putrejactioji is not the least; for Wood shines not till its 

 principles of Acid and Sulphur, by a retrograde motion, fall into a new 

 sort of Fermentation. . . . 



The like account may be given of Light, from some sorts of Fish, hung 

 up till they undergo an incipient putrefaction: For while their prin- 

 ciples of Acid and Sulphur, do by the moisture in the Air, undergo a 

 putefactive Fermentation, the Sulphur by those retrograde motions, be- 

 comes more volatiz'd, and by gentle touches from its inbred Acid, winds 

 off in a luminous flame: . . . 



As to the Light from Glo-worms, its probable that sort of insect takes 

 its original from the putrid juice or excrements of some animal or other 

 insect, wherein the principles are winding off in a slender texture of an 

 eradiating brightness, while juice that insect yet retains: For I look upon 

 the slender woven flame inherent in Glo-worms, and other foresaid putrid 

 juices to proceed from a mutual, but gentle vibration of the principles in 

 their retrograde motion: . . . 



Simpson continued with the same meaningless explanation of 

 luminous meteors, subterraneal lamps, precious stones and " those 

 which by a foregoing calcinatory preparation, become magnetical of 

 Light, of which sort is the Banian stone. . . ." In all cases the cause 

 was fermentation involving acid and sulphur, three magic words 

 not one of which could be accurately defined. 



In view of the original broad meaning of fermentation and its 

 application to combustion processes, it is not surprising to find that 

 George Ernst Stahl (1660-1734) announced the principle of phlo- 

 giston in his Zymotechnia Fundamentalis (Halae, 1697) . Later, 

 fermentation came to have a more restricted application, to bio- 



