70 Mr H. Blackadder on Unusual Atmospherical Refraction. 
The appearances called Looming and Mirage , leave but lit- 
tle doubt as to the origin of apparitions, spectres, phantoms, &c. 
among those who could not comprehend their cause : and now, 
when that is better understood, we are enabled to apologise for 
those who were, perhaps, not unnaturally led to believe in their 
supernatural origin. Thus, Plutarch relates, that, “ in Cam- 
pania, on the skirts of Mount Tiphatus, during the day- 
time, two great he-goats were seen to engage, and to do and 
suffer all those things which usually happen to men in combat. 
The phantom was gradually lifted up from the earth, and soon 
afterwards was dispelled and vanished in the air. Not long 
thereafter, Sylla having routed, dispersed, and slain on that 
very spot, 7000 men, that had been under the command of 
Marius the younger, and of Narbanus the consul, he shut up the 
consul in Capua.” While we may well congratulate ourselves, 
we cannot harshly censure the credulity of those times. 
It would appear, however, that about a century and a half 
ago, and perhaps at a still later period, these aerial appearances 
■were craftily turned, in our country, to the purposes of divina- 
tion, as we learn from the following among other sufficiently well 
authenticated incidents. About the time referred to, a gentle- 
man, being on business at one of the Western Islands, and anxi- 
ously waiting the arrival of a ship which he daily expected, hap- 
pened one day, when in a country public-house, to express his 
impatience and anxiety about the vessel ; when, 64 on going to 
the door of the house, there followed him a country man, who 
said to him, If you will give me a small hire I will tell you what 
is become of the ship you are looking for P and without more 
ado, the man set his foot on the gentleman’s foot, in which time 
he saw the ship in a great storm ready to perish ; but when the 
country man’s foot was off his foot he saw nothing. The ship 
was at that time about an hundred miles from them ; and about 
forty-eight hours thereafter she came into the same harbour, 
and had been in the same condition he saw her in at the time the 
country man’s foot was on his foot.” If we take into considera- 
tion the shrewdness of character, not rarely to be met with 
among our more secluded countrymen on the hills and isles, in 
connection with the credulity to be met with in the low coun- 
try, and if, perhaps, we make some allowance for the esti- 
mated distance of the ship, which was possibly only intended 
