NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK 
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ten miles away and kept rising and falling, dying down to a very 
small scarcely visible flame, then rising slowly into a column 
“looking thirty feet high.” It was not in the form of a ship, but 
a column, but people told him it was the fire ship. He was told 
it preceded a storm, but he took notice and no storm followed. 
Mr. Robert Wilson of Miscou, who sails much on Bay Chaleur 
telils me he has seen the fire-ship, (or as he calls it, the “burning 
ship”) several times. The time he was nearest it was about 
eleven years ago off Caraquet on a very dark night. The light 
appeared ahead, and finally he came near and passed within ioo 
yards to windward of it, so that he saw it with perfect clearness. 
It was somewhat the shape of a half-moon resting on the water, 
flat side down, or like a vessel on the water with a bowsprit b'it 
no masts etc., and “all glowing like a hot coal.” He dared not 
run nearer and passed it, keeping his eyes upon it until far beyond. 
On other occasions he has seen it, at various distances, and has 
come to pay little attention to it. Sometimes it looked somewhat 
like a ship, sometimes not, and sometimes it vanished while he 
was watching it. Usually it is dancing or vibrating. Again he 
has seen it as one tall light which would settle down and rise 
again as three, which would again settle, and so on. Recently I 
have been told by Dr. J. Orne Green of Boston, whose connection 
with Miscou is mentioned below, that Mr. Wilson reports seeing 
the light this ( 1 905 ) autumn ; it appeared ahead of his boat ns 
he sailed up the bay, vanished as he neared it, and in a few minutes 
re-appeared astern. Mr. Andrew Wilson, another leading resi- 
dent of Miscou has also seen it, when it resembled a whaleboat, 
not a ship, in form. Mr. McConnell, keeper of the light at 
Miscou Gulley, tells me that he has seen the fire-ship, about two 
miles away, but it did not look to him like a ship, but more like a 
big bonfire. Several others have told me that they have seen ;t, 
(the great majority of the residents in the region averring that 
they have seen it at one time or another), most of them agreeing 
that at times it looks like a ship on fire, but that at others mo f e 
1 ke a round light. All agree that it usually precedes a storm, 
and is seen over the ice in winter as well as over the water in 
summer. On the other hand, other trustworthy residents of 
