. Phosphorescence; or, The emission of light by minerals, plants, and animals. instances; these pheno-mena are evidently closely allied to electricity. Waterspouts (called by the French les tromhes),according to Peltier and more recent observers,are sometimes observed to be luminous when theyhappen in the night. A case of luminous meteoric dust is also onrecord :—During the eruption of Vesuvius whichtook place in 1794, a shower of extremely finedust fell in Naples and its environs. It emittedlight which, though pale, was distinctly visible atnight. An English gentleman, who happened tobe in a
. Phosphorescence; or, The emission of light by minerals, plants, and animals. instances; these pheno-mena are evidently closely allied to electricity. Waterspouts (called by the French les tromhes),according to Peltier and more recent observers,are sometimes observed to be luminous when theyhappen in the night. A case of luminous meteoric dust is also onrecord :—During the eruption of Vesuvius whichtook place in 1794, a shower of extremely finedust fell in Naples and its environs. It emittedlight which, though pale, was distinctly visible atnight. An English gentleman, who happened tobe in a boat near Ton^e del Greco about this time,observed that his hat, those of the boatmen, andparts of the sails where the dust had lodged, shedaround a sensible luminosity. Shooting starsj or meteoric stonesj leave afterthem ill the heavens a phosphoric stream of lightj FROSPHOHUSCUNCi:. 47 wMcli often persists for a considerable time aftertlieir passage (fig. 5). In his voyage round theworld, the Admii^al de Krusenstern saw one ofthese Aerolites leave behind it in the sky a. Fig. 5. phosphorescent streak wliich persisted for a wholehour, without sensibly changing its place. (SeeHumboldt: ^ Cosmos/ vol. i.) Phosphorescentstreaks left behind Aerohtes not unfrequently re-main visible for about a minute. We cannot do more than mention here thelightning flash,* the Aurora Borealis, the Zodia-cal light, the fire of St. Elmo, the light of fixed * On the various kinds of lightning, see Arago, Notice snrle Tonnerre, in his Q^uvres, or in the Ann. du Bureau des Longi-tudes, for the year 1838; Phipson, in the Comptes-Rendus ofthe Academy of Sciences of Paris, April 13,1857; and Du Moucelsbrochure, Sur le Tonnerre et les Eclairs. Paris: Hachette, 1857. 48 METEOROLOGICAL stars or suns^ and the flame, all of wliicli doubt-less belong to our present subject. Lord Napier observed the fire of St. Elmo inthe Mediterranean during a fearful he was retiring to rest, a cry from those
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