68 METEOROLOGICAL 



the water of the river. On examining it a little 

 nearer, lie was surprised to find that the light 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 light 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 to the Holy Land/ states 

 that an ignis fatuus 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 siicli a 

 degree as to involve the wliole 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 Will-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, observed 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 



