258 HISTORY OF 



dei'ing fire ; the fires of St Helmo, or the mariner's light ; are 

 everywhere frequent : and of these we have numberless de- 

 scriptions. " As I was riding in Jamaica," says Mr Barbham, 

 " one morning from my habitation, situated about three miles 

 north-west from Jago de la Vega, I saw a ball of fire, appearing 

 to me of the bigness of a bomb, swiftly falling down with a great 

 blaze. At first I thought it fell into the town ; but when I 

 came nearer, I saw many people gathered together, a little to 

 the southward, in the savanna, to whom I rode up, to inquire 

 the cause of their meeting : they were admiring, as I found, the 

 ground's being strangely broke up and ploughed by a ball of fire -, 

 which, as they said, fell down there. I observed there were 

 many holes in the ground ; one in the middle, of the bigness of 

 a man's head, and five or six smaller round about it, of the big- 

 ness of one's fist, and so deep as not to be fathomed by such 

 implements as were at hand. It was obsen'ed, also, that all the 

 green herbage was burned up, near the holes ; and there con- 

 tinued a strong smell of sulphur near the place, for some time 

 after." 



UUoa gives an account of one of a similar kind, at Quito. ' 

 " About nine at night," says he, " a globe of fire appeared to 

 rise from the side of the mountain Pichinca, and so large, that 

 it spread a light over all the part of the city facing that moun- 

 tain. The house where I lodged looking that way, I was sur- 

 prised with an cxtraordinaiy light, darting through the crevices 

 of the window-shutters. On this appearance, and the bustle of 

 the people in the street, I hastened to the window, and came in 

 time enough to see it, in the middle of its career ; which con- 

 tinued from west to south, till I lost sight of it, being intercept- 

 ed by a mountain, that lay between me and it. It was round ; 

 and its apparent diameter about a foot. I observed it to rise 

 from the sides of Pichinca ; although, to judge from its course, 

 it was behind that moimtain where this congeries of inflammable 

 matter was kindled. In the first half of its visible course, it 

 emitted a prodigious effulgence, then it began gradually to grow 



the Divine Providenre disposes tlie difftrent powers of ni^ture, to elevatfi 

 our thoiig-lits to one First Cause j to teach us to see. " God in all, aud all iji 

 Ood." 



1 Ulloa, vol. i. p. 41. 



