" When the cliffs were observed to burn in the night-time, the 

 flame was plainly perceived by a spectator at a distance ; but when 

 he drew near to the place, seemingly on fire, he could perceive a 

 smoke, but no flame. In the day time, nothing but a smoke wa 

 perceived, except the sun shined ; when the cliffs appeared, ^t a 

 distance, as if they were covered with pieces of glass, which re- 

 flected the sun's meridional rays ; but, upon drawing near to the 

 places where these luminous appearances were perceived, they dis- 

 appeared, and the cliffs seemed to be covered with smoke, which 

 stunk of a bituminous and sulphurous matter. 



" I have also, he says, been an eye-witness of the same kind of 

 flame arising from the Lodes, in Cornwall, especially such as con- 

 tained a great quantity of mundic and martial pyrites. Three times 

 I have seen this flame arise from the earth in the night, and once in 

 the middle of the day. In the night, a person, standing at a little 

 distance, would imagine that the place was all on fire ; and, even 

 on drawing near the same, he perceives himself surrounded with 

 flame, but is not hurt ; and, in four or five minutes time, he per^ 

 ceives this flame to decrease, and fall into the earth. In the day- 

 time, the flame is of a different colour, and not much unlike the 

 flame which arises from a furnace. There are several mines disco- 

 vered in this country by these mineral fires, where there were na 

 symptoms of such mines before." 



Several writers have mentioned, with surprise, the circumstance of 

 a substance having been frequently found at considerable depths, 

 which exactly resembles burned wood or charcoal ; and which many, 

 unable to ascertain its origin, have described as MINERAL CHAR- 

 COAL. Wood that appeared to have been burned was found by 

 G. F. de Oviedo, in earth which did not appear to have been ever 

 dug or disturbed, at a considerable depth, in the mines of Peru *. 



* Purchases Pilgrim, lib. v. cap. iii. p. 911. 



