MAN’S RELATIONS TO THE PHENOMENON OF PHOSPHORESCENCE.
Dr. Phipson, the eminent scientist, states that he once observed
certain phenomena in man, the light being a brilliant scintillation of
a metallic pink color.
It is well known that human beings under certain physical conditions
become luminous. In some cases among the ignorant great excitement has
been occasioned, and the victim avoided as a pest, or something capable
of dire disaster to the entire community.
In a small German village, an English physician discovered a man
who was luminous at night, and who had caused much alarm among the
superstitious.
Bartholin records an instance of an Italian lady whom he calls
_Mulier splendens_, who suddenly found that, when rubbed with a
linen cloth in the dark, her body gave out a brilliant phosphorescent
light; so that she appeared in a darkened room like a veritable
fire-body, an awe-striking object to her superstitious servant, who
fled from her speechless with fear and amazement, thinking that her
mistress was being consumed.
Dr. Kane records a very curious instance of luminosity, probably
electric, which played about his person. He was on his way with
Petersen to an Esquimau settlement, in order to procure food. Their
thermometer indicated -42° C. (-44° Fahr.). With their weary dogs
and sledges, they had reached some untenanted huts at a place called
Anoatok, after thirty miles march from the ship. “We took to the best
hut,” says Dr. Kane, “filled in its broken front with snow, housed our
dogs, and crawled in among them. It was too cold to sleep. Next morning
we broke down our door, and tried the dogs again. They could hardly
stand. A gale now set in from the south-west, obscuring the moon, and
blowing very hard. We were forced back into the hut; but after corking
up all the openings with snow, and making a fire with our Esquimau
lamp, we got up the temperature to 30° below zero, Fahr., cooked
coffee, and fed the dogs freely. This done, Petersen and myself, our
clothing frozen stiff, fell asleep through pure exhaustion; the wind
outside blowing death to all that might be exposed to its influence.
I do not know how long we slept, but my admirable clothing kept me
up. I was cold, but far from dangerously so, and was in a fair way of
sleeping out a refreshing night, when Petersen woke me with, ‘Captain
Kane, the lamp’s out.’ I heard him with a thrill of horror.... Our only
hope was in relighting our lamp. Petersen, acting by my directions,
made several attempts to obtain fire from a pocket-pistol; but his
only tinder was moss, and our heavily stone-roofed hut or cave would
not bear the concussion of a rammed wad. By good luck I found a bit
of tolerably dry paper, and becoming apprehensive that Petersen
would waste our few percussion-caps with his ineffectual snapping, I
determined to take the pistol myself. It was so intensely dark that I
had to grope for it, and in so doing touched his hand. _At that instant
the pistol became distinctly visible. A pale-bluish light slightly
tremulous, but not broken, covered the metallic parts of it_,--the
barrel, lock and trigger. The stock, too, was clearly discernible, as
if by the reflected light; and _to the amazement of both of us_, _the
thumb and two fingers with which Petersen was holding it_, the creases,
wrinkles, and circuit of the nails, clearly defined upon the skin. _The
phosphorescence was not unlike the ineffectual fire of the glow-worm.
As I took the pistol, my hand became illuminated also, and so did the
powder-rubbed paper when I raised it against the muzzle._ The paper did
not ignite at the first trial; _but the light from it continuing_, I
was able to charge the pistol without difficulty, rolled up my paper
into a cone, filled it with moss sprinkled over with powder, and held
it in my hand whilst I fired. This time I succeeded in producing flame,
and we saw no more of the phosphorescence.... Our fur clothing and the
state of the atmosphere may refer it plausibly enough to our electrical
condition.”
Mr. James Moir of Saroch, Scotland, relates an equally strange personal
experience, possibly connected with the electrical condition of the
atmosphere. “In February, 1882,” he says, “this part of Scotland was
visited by a furious gale of wind, rain, sleet, and hail. The gale
subsided considerably about five o’clock in the afternoon. At eight
o’clock the sky was fairly clear, when a black cloud sprang up in the
north, and the night became suddenly intensely dark. With the darkness
came a tremendous shower of hail. All at once I was startled by a vivid
flash of lightning close at hand, but without thunder. At the same
instant I found myself enveloped in a sheet of pale, flickering, white
light. It seemed to proceed from every part of my clothes, especially
on the side least exposed to the hail; and more particularly and
brightly from my arm, shoulder, and head. Though I turned about pretty
smartly, and shifted my position, I found it impossible to shake off
the flickering flames. When I walked on they continued with me for two
or three minutes, disappearing only when the violence of the blast was
somewhat diminished. I felt no unusual sensation beyond the stinging of
the hail, and no sound except that of the storm.”
The adventures of John Stewart, who for many years drove a mail-gig
between Dunkeld and Aberfeldy, Scotland, as given by an English paper,
are well worth recording. On an extremely dark night, he and another
man, climbing a rocky, heathery height in Rannock, were all at once
set on flames by some mysterious fire, which appeared to proceed from
the heather which they were traversing; and the more they tried to rub
the flames off, the more tenaciously they seemed to adhere, and the
more the fire increased in brightness and magnitude. Moreover, the long
heather, agitated by their feet, emitted streams of burning vapor; and
for the space of a few minutes they were in the greatest consternation.
They believed that they barely escaped a living cremation. Of course
their liberal share of native superstition, and the gloom of the night
in the weird wilderness remote from human habitation, rendered their
position the more alarming.
A wonderful phenomenon is noted by a gentleman living in Cheltenham,
England. He was returning from Great Yarmouth to his house, a distance
of three miles, and took the road of the Denes, intending to cross
by the lower ferry. Before reaching it, a dark cloud coming from the
south-east, off the sea, suddenly surprised him, and drenched him
with rain. He jumped into the boat, and when the boatman had pushed
off, he remarked that every drop of rain hanging from his hair, beard,
and clothes was luminous with white light, well seen, as it was very
dark at the time. He afterwards learned that the same appearance had
been observed by several pilots exposed to the same shower, and he
attributed the occurrence to a species of St. Elmo’s fire.