[15] Nothing is more easy than to account for these productions, which have no relation to any events that may happen to follow them. The appearance of two suns has frequently happened in England, as well as in other places, and is only caused by the clouds being placed in such a situation, as to reflect the image of that luminary; nocturnal fires, enflamed spears, fighting armies, were no more than what we call the Aurora Borealis or northern lights, or ignited vapours floating in the air; showers of stones, of ashes, or of fire, were no other than the effects of the eruptions of some volcano at a considerable distance; showers of milk were caused by some quality in the air, condensing, and giving a whitish colour to the water; and those of blood are now well known to be only the red spots left upon the earth, on stones and leaves of trees, by the butterflies which hatch in hot and stormy weather. CHAPTER IV. HISTORY OF ORACLES--THE PRINCIPAL ORACLES OF ANTIQUITY. Few superstitions have been so famous, and so seductive to the minds of men during a number of ages, as oracles. In treaties of peace or truces, the Greeks never forgot to stipulate for the liberty of resorting to oracles. No colony undertook new settlements, no war was declared, no important affair begun, without first consulting the oracles. The most renowned oracles were those of Delphos, Dodona, Trophonius, Jupiter Hammon, and the Clarian Apollo. Some have attributed the oracles of Dodona to oaks, others to pigeons. The opinion of those pigeon-prophetesses was introduced by the equivocation of a Thessalian word, which signified both a pigeon and a woman; and gave room to the fable, that two pigeons having taken wing from Thebes, one of them fled into Lybia, where it occasioned the establishing of the oracle of Jupiter Hammon; and the other, having stopped in the oaks of the forest of Dodona, informed the inhabitants of the neighbouring parts, that it was Jupiter's intention there should be an oracle in that place. Herodotus has thus explained the fable: there were formerly two Priestesses of Thebes, who were carried off by Phenecian merchants. She that was sold into Greece, settled in the forest of Dodona, where great numbers of the ancient inhabitants of Greece went to gather acorns. She there erected a little chapel at the foot of an oak, in honour of the same Jupiter, whose priestess she had been; and here it was this ancient oracle was established, which in after times became so famous. The manner of delivering the oracles of Dodona was very singular. There were a great number of kettles suspended from trees near a copper statue, which was also suspended with a hunch of rods in its hand. When the wind happened to put it in motion, it struck the first kettle, which communicating its motion to the next, all of them tingled, and produced a certain sound which continued for a long time; after which the oracle spoke. THE ORACLE OP JUPITER HAMMON.