stances. Chemical feats in these things are now so common and well-known as to surprise few grown-uppersons in civilised countries; yet they look in themselves like the most magnificent tricks of magic; and they were anciently performed by some impostors under impious claim of the miraculous. It is said, for example, respecting an old deceiver who wished to mix up paganism with Christianity, that he put white wine into three transparent glasses, and that, while he was praying, it became in one case blood-red, in another purple, and in the third sky-blue. "A very remarkable experiment of an analogous nature has been publicly exhibited in modern times. Professor Beyruss, who lived at the court of the Duke of Brunswick, one day pronounced to his Highness that the dress which he wore should during dinner become red; and the change actually took place, to the astonishment of the prince and the rest of his guests. M. Vogel, who has recorded this curious fact, has not divulged the secret of the German chemist; but he observes, that, if we pour lime-water into the juice of beet-root, we shall obtain a colourless liquid, and that a piece of white cloth dipped in this liquid and dried rapidly will in a few hours become red by the mere contact of air. M. Vogel is also of opinion that this singular effect would be accelerated in an apartment where champagne or other fluids charged with carbonic acid are poured out in abundance." Natural "fields of fire" figure in many a marvellous story, and in old times were associated with debasing superstition. The chief one is in the vicinity of Baku, on the shore of the Caspian Sea, and has often been described. Any part of the ground within a circum refence of about two miles may be inflamed by the touch of a live coal; and, if previously dug with a spade, it will set up an instant, furious, destructive conflagration. Inflammable springs occur at intervals; and in stormy weather they sometimes ignite and blaze aloft of their own accord, and send off to the sea burning streams which carry an invasion of fire on the waters to the distance of several leagues from the shore. All the country around Baku has at times the appearance of being mantled with flames. "It seems," we are told, "as if the fire rolled down from the mountains in large masses and with incredible velocity; and during the clear moonshine nights of November and December, a bright blue light is observed at times to cover the whole western range." The great old heathen community of Parsees, Guebres, or fire-worshippers, had their principal temple in a part of this region, over a kind of mimic volcano or great spouting spring of the flames; and the modern inhabitants, by means of the simple contrivance of sticking slender tubes in the ground, obtain sufficient fire for cooking and for all other domestic purposes. Yet the sole peculiarity of all the region is the constant evolution from some carbonaceous strata in the depth below, and the constant escape thence upward to the air, of natural naphtha, a compound of carbon and hydrogen, closely similar to the artificial naphtha which is now obtained from coal gas-works. Natural decompositions of coal, or of other carbonaceous rock, within the bowels of the earth, sometimes yield occasional, temporary, or even prolonged supplies of inflammable gaseous matter very similar to manufactured coal-gas. Some of these are quietly used for economical purposes; and others, both in ancient and in modern times-catching fire and forking far into the air in prodigious tongues of flame-have not a little terrified the ignorant. Among many famous or remarkable instances, may be mentioned the triple monster sung by the Grecian poets and conquered by Bellerophon, the burning springs of Samos, Bathos, the vicinity of Phaselis, and other places in Greece, some great fire-spouts and fire-fields in the south of Italy, the temple of Chittagong in Bengal, -the fire-springs of Kiating-fou in China,—the Pit of the Wind in Germany, serving all the purposes of a small gas-work,-the lights which flit about the precipitous cliffs of the Acroceraunian Mountains before the blowing of the sirocco, and the bright light at Maracaybo in South America, called the Lantern, which blazes long and steadily every night on an uninhabited mountain, and can be easily distinguished at a distance of more than forty leagues. A certain decomposition of exuviæ, dead worms, carrion, corpses, and all similar matter, produces a gas called phosphoretted hydrogen, which spontaneously burns in dark night in the open air with a cold lambent flame. It is, of course, most abundant in dunghills, graveyards, marshes, and the open drainage of towns and slaughterhouses; and, being very light and fitfully produced, it flits and flickers before the most gentle motions of the air. The light of it is the "spunkie" of the Scottish peasantry, the "dead light" and "corpse light" of superstition, the ignis fatuus of philosophy, and the "Will-o'-wisp" and "Jack-a-lantern" of common popular story. The ordinary ap pearances of this light in Britain are well described in the following terms by Graham :— "Sometimes from rushing bush To bush it leaps, or cross a little rill Time's scythe and hour-glass, and the grinning skull It commonly has a pale bluish colour, and seems brightest at a distance; yet it varies greatly in both tint and brilliance. One, seen very long ago in the vicinity of Bologna in Italy, accompanied a person about a mile along a road, and generally shone like a large torch, about six feet from the ground, but was always inconstant-coming and going, rising and falling, contracting and expanding, separating and reuniting, and even assuming the form of a wave, and sending off brilliant sparks. And another, seen at Chapelle-aux-Planches about thirteen years ago, was a pale red pyramid ten or twelve feet high, emitting light enough to read by; and, after blazing half an hour, broke into pieces, and dispersed itself athwart a marsh. Akin to the ignis fatuus, is the glowing light of phosphorescence. This, too, is luminosity without heat,always curious, and often most strikingly beautiful; and in some instances it differs little or nothing from the ignis fatuus except in being confined to one spot. But it has great diversity of both seat and character; and it must be regarded not properly as one thing, but as a group of similar things. In some cases it probably arises from the evolution of latent light; in others, from various chemical action on mixed mineral substances; in others, from some ill-understood properties or functions of certain kinds of living creatures; and in others, from exactly the same or similar decompositions of dead animal substances as occasion the ignis fatuus. It is evolved in mild yet very diversified glory, now iridescent, now sparkling, and now brightly blue or green or red or yellow, from many kinds of minerals on their being struck or rubbed or much heated. It glows and sparkles on the bodies of putrefying fish. It is the fascinating fairy light of the lightning-bug and the glow-worm. It is the brilliant iris-flash which sometime leaps, like the revelation of an ocean-heaven, from a shoal of herrings or of pilchards. And most noticeably of all, it is a property of medus, zoophytes, and other small sea-animals, which makes all the wake of a ship, in a dark night, appear like a stream of liquid fire. Thousands of graphic writers have described the phosphorescence of the sea, but none with more simple power than Sir Walter Scott: "Awaked before the rushing prow, Those lightnings of the wave; While far behind their livid light To the dark billows of the night |