•'li 



Vol VIII.— No. 2. 



AND HORTICULTURAL JOURNAL. 



13 



1 soon after, a strange beast resembling a large 



tr was seen. Wlien the slieep returnctl to their 



ners in the fall of 18"27, some farmers did not 



'" d more than half of their number, and more or 



''' s wore missing from almost every flock. During 



! winter of 182T-S, the unknown animal visited 



'" ! enclosed iiclds and barn yards, and killed some 



Sep in almost every fold, in the vicinity of the 



pods ; his tracks were seen in the snow, and the 



izens luiited in hunting matches to destroy him, 



t he escaped unharmed. In the sunmier of 



28, he killed many sheep both in the pastures 



the woods, and several carcases of deer 



"'"ire discovered; he was frequently seen, and 



Sny times pursued by the hunters, but always 



;aped. lie was once iseen in the road by two 



ung women ; after thej' had shouted at him 



ireral times, he delibei'ately jum])cd over the 



ice into a field and killed a lamb. Prey was 



undant, and he seldom look more from a sheep 



jn the blood, the milk glands of ewes, and a 



iv niouthfids from the hind quarters; many 



cep were found alive, cruelly wounded, and a 



fr recovered. During the winter of 1828-9 he 



ntinued his usual habits, and many a general 



n out of the people was made after him, but 



'■ By could neither kill nor capture him. Dogs 



'" ite afraid of him and would not follow his track. 



icli of the towns of Sandwich and Falmouth of- 



"'• red a reward of $100 for his destruction within 



■'''] ejr bounds. At length, on the tenth of June 



St, a party discovered him in Barnstable, and 



seph Hoxsie severely wounded him with a 



"' large of buckshot ; he was pursued about three 



"''I lies to a swamp in Sandwich, where a second 



1 large of buckshot killed him. He proved to be 



"'.'wolf, weighing 68 pounds, and measuring 6 feet 



" 3m the nose to the end of the tail. It is sup- 



^ ised that he was brought to Plymouth from 



1" ibrador by a fishing vessel, a few years ago. — 



'' lie vessel had three whelps on board, one of 



hich escaped to the woods, and the others died ; 



ey were su[)poscd to be j'oung foxes, but it is 



>w believed that they were wolves. It was a 



ason of great rejoicing when the animal was 



nin. He had destroyed more than one thousand 



eep in Sandwich, and perha])s an equal number 



other towns. About forty years ago a wolf 



oiu Vermont made great destruction among the 



eep in Barnstable, and Plymouth comities where 



5 remained two or three years ; he was killed in 



iddleborough. — Hamp. Gnzelk. 



Hemp. — Wc have seen several stalks of hemp 

 \ feet in length, from the field of Mr Hibbard, at 

 adley upper Mills, and are informed that the 

 on about two acres was from five to six feet 

 height, in six weeks from the time the seed 

 as sown. — Ibid. 



i ;mij 



Rtmains of the Mammoth. — Two tusks of the 

 ammoth have been exhibited at Edinburgh, 

 hich were brought from the coast of America, 

 Jar Bhering's Straits. They are in fine preser- 

 ition ; the smallest is nine feet nine inches in 

 ligth, and the largest, which has lost the point, 

 lUst have been originally twelve feet. Professor 

 imeson thinks the animal must have been 15 or 

 6 feet Jiigh, and much larger than the elephant. 

 he tusks were found imbedded in a mass of ice 

 ne hundred feet above the water, and with them 

 ■ere many teetli and bones of the mammoth. — 

 he race of animals to which these remains be- 



longed must have been extinguished by some 

 great catastrophe, probably the general deluge. — 

 Their remains are found in North America, Eu- 

 rope and Northern Asia. — Ibid. 



Great Blast. — A few days since, 175 pounds of 

 powder were expended at one blast on the Ches- 

 apeake and Ohio Canal line, in JVIaryland, and 

 from 800 to 1000 tons of the solid rock were sep- 

 arated from the mass and thrown into a ravine ; 

 about an eijual quantity of stone was loosened by 

 the same blast. 



From Silliman's Journal of Science and Arls. 



IGNIS FATUUS. 



By Rev. John Milchdl. 



Those luminous appearances which are pojiu- 

 larly called " Will-o-the-wisp," and " Jack-a-lan- 

 tern," have been alike the object of vulgar super- 

 stition and philosophical curiosity ; and notwith- 

 standing all attempts to apprehend and subject 

 them to examination, they, are not much more the 

 subjects of knowledge iiov/ than they were centu- 

 ries ago. 



I was myself, formerly, familiar with these ap- 

 pearances ; they were of frequent occurrence near 

 my father's residence, owing, probably, to the 

 proximity-of extensive wet grounds, over which 

 they are usually seen. The house stood u))on a 

 ridge, which sloped down on three sides to the 

 beautiful meadows which form the margin of the 

 Connecticut. 



These mysterious luminaries used often to be 

 seen by the fishermen, who plied their nets by night 

 as well as by daj'. They commonly reported that 

 they saw them a little above the surface of the 

 meadow, dancing up and down, or gliding quietly 

 along in a horizontal lirte. Sometimes two or 

 even three, would be seen together, skipping and 

 dancing, or sailing away in couuert, as if rejoicing 

 in their mutual companionship. I might entertain 

 you with abundance of fabulous accounts of them 

 — the offspring of imaginations tinctured with su- 

 perstition, and of minds credulous from a natural 

 love of the marvellous. Fables, however, are of 

 little value for the jiurposes of science : if the fol- 

 lowing account of some of the phenomena of the 

 ignis fatuus, shall, with the observation of others, 

 contribute towards a true theory of its nature, 

 you will think them worthy of a place in your 

 Journal. 



A friend of mine, returning from abroad late 

 in the evening, had to cross a strip of marsh. As 

 he ajiproached the causeway,' he noticed a light 

 towards the opposite end, which he supposed to 

 be a lantern in the hand of some person whom he 

 was about to meet. It proved, however, to be a 

 solitary flame, a few inches above the marsh, at the 

 distance of a few feet from the edge of the cause- 

 way. He stopped some time to look at it ; and 

 was strongly tempted, notwithstanding the miri- 

 ness of the place, to get nearer to it, for the pur- 

 pose of closer examination. It was evidently a 

 vapor, [phosphuretted hydrogen ?] issuing from 

 the mud, and becoming ignited, or at least lumin- 

 ous, in contact with the air. It exhibited a flick- 

 ering appearance, like that of a candle expiring in 

 its socket ; alternately burning with a large flame, 

 and then sinking to a small taper; and occasion- 

 ally, for a moment, becoming quite extinct. It 

 constantly appeared over the same spot. 



With the phenomena exhibited in this instance. 



I have been accustomed to compare those exhib- 

 ited in other instances, whether observed by my- 

 self or others ; and generally making due allow- 

 ance for the illusion of the senses and the credu- 

 lity of the imagination in the dark and misty 

 night, (for it is on such nights that they usually 

 apjicar,) I have found these phenomena sullicient 

 for the explanation of all the fantastic tricks which 

 are reported of these phantoms. 



They are supposed to be endowed with loco- 

 motive ))ower. They appear to recede from the 

 spectator, or to advance towards him. But this 

 may be explained without locomotion — by their 

 variation in respect to quantity of flame. As the 

 light dwindles away, it will seem to move from 

 you, and with a velocity i)roportioned to the ra- 

 pidity of its diminution. Again as it grows larger, 

 it will appear to approach you. If it expire, by 

 several flickerings or flashes, it will seem to skip 

 from you, and when it reappears you will easily 

 imagine that it has assumed a new position. This 

 reasoning accounts for their apparent motion, 

 either to or from the spectator ; and I never could 

 ascertain that they moved in any other direction, 

 that is, in a line oblique or ])erpendicular to that 

 in which they first a])])cared. In one in- 

 stance, indeed, I thought this was the fact, and 

 what struck me as more singular, the light appear- 

 ed to move with great rapidity, directly against a 

 very strong wind. But after looking some time, 

 I reflected that I had not changed the direction of 

 my eye at all, whereas if the apparent motion had 

 been real, I ought to have turned half round. — 

 The deception was occasioned by the motion of 

 the wind itself — as a stake standing in a rapid 

 stream will appear to move against the current. 



It is a common notion that the ignis fatuus can- 

 not be approached, but will move oft' as rapidly 

 as you advance. This characteristic is mention- 

 ed in the Edinburgh Encyclopedia. It is doubt- 

 less a mistake. Persons attempting to approach 

 them, liave been deceived perhaps as to their dis- 

 tance, and finding them farther oflfthan they im- 

 agined, have proceeded a little way and given over, 

 under the impression that jiursuit was vain. An 

 acquaintance of mine, a plain man, told me he 

 actually stole up close to one and caught it in his 

 hat, as he thought : — " and what was it ? " I 

 asked. " It was nothing." On looking into his 

 hat for the " shining jelly," it had wholly disap- 

 peared. His motions had dissipated the vapor, or 

 perhaps his foot had closed the orifice from which 

 it issued. To this instance another may be ad- 

 ded. A young man and woman walking home 

 from an evening visit, ajiproached a light which 

 they took for a lantern carried by some neighbor, 

 but which on actua:lly passing it, they found to be 

 borne by no visible being ; and taking themselves 

 to flight, burst into the nearest house, with such 

 preci|iitation as to overturn the furniture, and im- 

 part no small share of their fright to the family. 



The circumstance that these lights usually ap- 

 pear over marshy grounds, exjilains another pop- 

 ular notion respecting them ; namely, that they 

 possess the power of beguiling persons into 

 swamps and fens. In a misty night, they are 

 easily mistaken for the light of a neighboring 

 house, and the deceived traveller, directing his 

 course towards it, meets with fences, ditches, and 

 other obstacles, and by perseverance, lands at 

 length, quite bewildered, in the swam)) itself By 

 this time, he perceives that the false lamp is only 

 a irfischievous jack-a-lantern. An adventure of 



