64 



Marvels of the Universe 



ST. ELMO'S FIRES 



BY FRANK T. BULLEN, F.R.G.S. 



Ever since 

 appearance 



the dawn of seafaring, seamen have had their superstitious fears excited by the 



on sahent points of their 



vessels' 

 1 



Photo by'] 



The spicier has 



THE WATER SPIDER. 



captured a worm, and is taUin 



to he 



Photo Sb] 

 The spider 



spars of these extraordinarj- agglomerations of 

 static electricity. Many and various are the 

 allusions made to them in literature under 

 differing names, of which St. Elmo's Fire is 

 perhaps the most poetical. Sailors, however, 

 know them best by the name of "corposants," 

 an obvious corruption of the Italian appellation 

 corpo santo, or holy body. Even this word corpo- 

 sants has been corrupted by careless users into 

 composants and other forms of the same kind. 



The popular idea that their appearance, 

 glowing, lambent, and delicate, at a vessel's yard- 

 arms or mast-heads presages worse weather has 

 no foundation in fact. They merely indicate 

 that the air is at the time surcharged with 

 electricity, which, having no discharging factor 

 at work, simply accumulates upon some favour- 

 able point and becomes visible as a soft, elusive, 

 but never quite stationary flame. There can be 

 little doubt that this light is similar to that of 

 the Will-o'-th'-wisp, or Ignis jatiius, although 

 not proceeding from the same source ; the 

 latter being probably luminous marsh gas. 



If anything would convince a superstitious 

 person of the harmlessness of St. Elmo's Fire it 

 would be the fact, so frequently demonstrated, 

 that it often covers like a halo the head of a 

 seaman engaged in work aloft, and I myself have 

 several times seen it streaming from ^my fingers 

 when holding them up for the purpose:"-' I cannot 

 help confessing to a curious feeling;' of the un7 

 canny on witnessing this phenomenon.. 



Perhaps a belief in the supernatural origin 

 of these most beautiful manifestations of the 

 electricity in the air may be more readily under- 

 stood than any other of the sea-superstitions 

 now so rapidly dying away. Only appearing on 

 the blackest of nights, moving from point to 

 point without apparently passing through the 

 intermediate space, unaffected by fiercest wind 

 or heaviest rain, and insusceptible of being 

 touched or moved, St. Elmo's Fires form what is 

 probably the most mysterious and lovely of all 

 the wonderful phenomena belonging to the ocean. 



