248 Observations on Ignis Faluns. 



With the phenomena exhibited in this instance, I have 

 been accustomed to compare those exhibited in other in- 

 stances, whether observed by myself or others ; and general- 

 ly, makmg due allowance for the illusion of the senses and 

 the credulity of the imagination in a dark and misty night, 

 (for It is on such nights that they usually appear,) I have 

 found these phenomena sufficient for the explanation of all 

 the fantastic tricks which are reported of these phantoms. 



They are supposed to be endowed with a locomotive pow- 

 er. They appear to recede from the spectator, or to advance 

 towards him. But this may be explained without locomo- 

 tion — 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 proportioned to the rapidity of its diminution. 

 Again as it grows larger, it will appear to approach you. 

 If It expires, 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 perpendicular to that 

 in which they first appeared. In one instance, indeed, I 

 thought this was the fact, and what struck me as more sin- 

 gular, the light appeared to move, with great rapidity, di- 

 rectly against a very strong wind. But after looking some 

 time, I reflected that 1 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 oc- 

 casioned by the motion of the wind itself — as a stake stand- 

 ing in a rapid stream will appear to move against the current. 



It is a common notion that the ignis fatuus cannot be ap- 

 proached, but will move off" as rapidly as you advance. This 

 characteristic is mentioned in the Edinburgh Encyclopoedia. 

 It is doubtless a mistake. Persons attempting to approach 

 them, have been deceived perhaps as to their distance, and 

 finding them farther oflf than they imagined, have proceeded 

 a little way and given over, under the impression that pursuit 

 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'nt 

 nothin."* On looking into his hat for the " shining jelly," it 



" In the colloquial double negative of the common people of New England.— ^rf. 



