59 
with an Account of the Fire of' St Elmo. 
such violence on the jib-boom, some thunder and lightning had 
previously been seen at a distance. At the ship all was calm, 
but dark and threatening. Without the accompaniment of 
thunder, the fire darted, as it were, not from a cloud, but from 
the immediate atmosphere itself, charged heavily with matter, 
and called into activity by the presence and contiguity of the 
ghip. Had there been a conductor aloft, it is possible that the 
descent would have been redoubled ; or, had there been no ship 
at all, nor the presence of any such attractive power, it is pro- 
bable that the lightning would never have occurred. 
Independent of the common electric fluid, the atmosphere 
appears sometimes to be impregnated with another description of 
luminous electric meteor, which has been known to be attracted, 
and settle quickly at the ship’s mast-head, without producing 
any of those dire occurrences before alluded to. This particu- 
lar appearance has been denominated by foreign seamen Saint 
Elmo's Light , a beautiful instance of which I had once an op- 
portunity of witnessing. 
In the month of June 1808, passing from the Island of 
Ivica to that of Majorca, on board a Spanish polacca ship, fitted 
as a cartel, and manned by about thirty ruffians, Genoese, Va- 
lencians, and Catalonians ; a fine southerly gale, by seven in the 
evening, brought us within 6 or 7 leagues of the anchorage in 
Palma Bay. About this time, the sea-breeze failing us astern, 
was shortly succeeded by light and baffling breezes off the land. 
No -sooner had the setting sun withdrawn his golden beams 
from the tops of the lofty hills, which rise to the westward of the 
town, than a thick and impenetrable cloud, gathering upon the 
summit of Mount Galatzo, spread gradual darkness on the hills 
below, and extended at length a premature obscurity along the 
very surface of the shore. About nine, the ship becalmed, the 
darkness was intense, and rendered still more sensible by the 
yellow fire that gleamed upon the horizon to the south, and ag- 
gravated by the deep-toned thunder which rolled at intervals on 
the mountain, accompanied by the quick rapidity of that forked 
lightning, whose eccentric course, and dire effects, set all de- 
scription at defiance. By half-past nine, the hands were sent 
aloft to furl top-gallant-sails, and reef the top-sails, in prepara- 
tion for the threatening storm. When retiring to rest, a sud- 
