Waterspouts are not unfrequent along the shores of Syria, and more especially in the neighbourhood of Mount Carmel. Those observed by Dr. Shaw appeared to be so many cylinders of water falling down from the clouds; though by the reflection it might be of these descending columns, or from the actual dropping of the fluid contained in them, they would sometimes, says he, appear at a distance to be sucked up from the sea. The theory of waterspouts in the present day does in fact admit the supposition here referred to; that the air, being rarefied by particular causes, has its equilibrium restored by the elevation of the water, on the same principle that mercury rises in the barometer, or the contents of a well in a common pump. The opinions of the learned traveller on this subject are extremely loose and unscientific, and are only valuable in our times as marking a certain stage in the progress of meteorological inquiry. The same author has recorded a fact which we have not observed in the pages of any other tourist. In travelling by night, in the beginning of April, through the valleys of Mount Ephraim, he was attended for more than an hour by an _ignis fatuus_ that displayed itself in a variety of extraordinary appearances. It was sometimes globular, and sometimes pointed like the flame of a candle; then it spread itself so as to involve the whole company in its pale inoffensive light; after which it contracted, and suddenly disappeared. But in less than a minute it would begin again to exert itself as at other times, running along from one place to another with great swiftness, like a train of gunpowder set on fire; or else it would expand itself over more than two or three acres of the adjacent mountains, discovering every shrub and tree that grew upon them. The atmosphere from the beginning of the evening had been remarkably thick and hazy; and the dew, as felt upon the bridles, was unusually clammy and unctuous. In such weather similar luminous bodies are observed skipping about the masts and yards of ships, and are called by the mariners _corpusanse_, a corruption of the _cuerpo santo_, or sacred body, of the Spaniards. The same were the Castor and Pollux of the ancients. Some writers have attempted to account for these phenomena, particularly for the _ignis fatuus_, by supposing it to be occasioned by successive swarms of flying glowworms, or other insects of the same nature. But, as Dr. Shaw observes, not to perceive or feel any of these insects, even when the light which they produce spreads itself around us, should induce us to explain both this appearance and the other on the received principle that they are actually meteors, or a species of natural phosphorus.[192] SECTION III.--ZOOLOGY.