M. Geoflfroy de St. Hilaire has described a polydactyle

horse as havingfingers separated by membranes:} yet, when ancient authors have spoken of horses, the feet of which
of the natural series to which it belongs ; and in every instance, however great the deviation, the species to which the individual belonged has been readily recognized. — En.
* Aelian, de Nat. Atiim. lib. xviii. cap. xviii.
t Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. vii. cap. iv.
I Stance de VAcadimie de Paris, 13 Aoiit, 1807.
74 EXTRAORDINARY STORIES CREDIBLE.
bore some resemblance to the hands and feet of a man, they have been accused of imposture. The history of inanimate bodies is not less rich in singular facts, which the ancients considered as prodigies, and which the modems long regarded as fables.
Upon Mount Erycus in Sicily, the altar of Venus was situated in the open air ;* and upon it burnt, night and day, an unextinguishable flame, without wood, coal, or cinders, and in defiance of the cold, the rain, and the dew. Bayle,t one of those philosophers who has rendered the greatest service to the human intellect, regards this as a fable. He would not have received, with more indulgence, the accoimt which Philostratus} gives of a cavern observed by Apollonius near Paraca in India, whence continually issued a sacred flame of a leaden colour, emitting neither odour, nor smoke. Neverthe- less, nature has kindled similar fires in other places. The fires of Pietramala in Tuscany are, according to Sir Humphrey Davy, owing to an escape of carburetted hydrogen gas.|| The perpetual fires admired at the Atisch-gah (place of fire), nearBakhou, in Georgia,^ are fed by the naphtha with which the soil is impregnated. These are sacred fires, and tha penitent Hindoos have surrounded theirs with an enclosure of cells, similar to those raised round the fire of Mount Erycus, the temple
* Adian, Var» Hist. lib. x. cap. l.
t Bayle, Dictionnaire historique et critique, art. Egnatia, note D.
I Philostrat. Vit. ApoUon, lib. iii. cap. iii.
II Journal de Pharmacie, wmie 181 5» p. 520.
$ N. Mouraviev, Voyage dana la Turcomame et d Kikiva, p. 224 —225.
JSXTIUORDINAJIY 8TOBIE8 CBBDIBLE. 75
of Venus. In Hungary, in the salt mine of Szalina, in the cdrde of Marmarosch,"*^ a Qtrong current of air, rushing from a gallery ignites spontaneously. It is carburetted hydrogen gas, similar to that employed in the present day for lighting our streets. For this purpose it has been profitably applied, and with a success which apparently will prove durable, since the gaseous effusion is no less uniform than abimdant. In the province of Xen-si in China, several wells emit volumes of carburetted hydrogen, which is applied by the inhabitants to the common uses of lifcf Phenomena, similar to those we have descaibed, would at the disposal of thaumaturges, become powerful auxi- liaries to superstition. The ignorant have been led to believe, that water was metamorphosed into blood ; that the heavens rained blood, and that the snow lost its natural colour and appeared stained, with blood ; and even that flour bread has offered a blood-imbued nourish- ment to man, from which severe diseases arose. These are the facts we find in ancient history, and even in some modem writings, almost of our own times.
In the spring of the year 1825, the waters of the Lake of Morat presented an appearance, in many places of being coloured with blood ; and popular attention was directed towards this strange appearance. M. de Can- dolle,{ however, proved that the phenomenon was
* Le Constitutionnel, du 7 Septembre, 1826.
t Extract from the account of Vanhoom and VanKampen, 1670. S^ce de F Academic dee Sciences, 5 D^cembre, 1836.
X Professor de Candolle, the most distinguished botanist of the present period. — En.
76 EXTRAORDINARY STORIES CREDIBLE.
(paused by the development of myriads of those creatures, which are called Oscellatoria rubescens (purple con-- ferva of Puller), and which form the link in the chain between animal and vegetable beings.* The phenomenon occurs every spring, and the fishermen then say, the lake is in flower.f M. Ehrenberg, when sailing on the Red Sea, discovered that the colour of the water is occasioned by a similar circumstance.^ It would not, therefore, be impossible, for a naturalist, were he to study the mode of reproduction of the Oscel- latoria, to convert the waters of a pond, or a portion of a river, or running stream into apparent blood.
We are acquainted with many natural causes which explain those stains observed on stones and the walls of buildings, which might easily be imagined to be caused by a shower of blood. The phenomenon of red snow, less often remarked, although as common as the other apparent blood stains, yet results from many natural causes. Naturalists have attributed it some- times to the pollen powder of a species of pine ; some-
* Revue Encyclopedique, tome xxxiii. p. 676.
t The phenomenon on the occasion referred to continued for Beveral months. In the advanced period of the day, the lake appeared covered at a little distance from its banks with long parallel, red lines, which were driven by the wind into the small bays; and being collected romid the weedis, formed a spume of a beautiful colour, varying from greenish black to lively red. A putrid odour exhaled from the shallow places. The flesh of the pike and the perch became as red as if they had been fed on madder, and the small fish died. — £d.
X Revue Encyclopidique, tome xxxiii. p. 783, and Nouvelles Annales des Voyages, 2nd edit, tome vi. p. 383.
EXTRAORDINARY STORIES CREDIBLE. 77
times to small insects, or minute plants, which attach themselves also to the surface of certain marbles,* and to those calcareous pebbles, which are found on the sea shore.f
* See on this subject the interestiiig Memoir of M. le Profes- seur Agardh, Bulletin de la SocUti de G4ographie, vol. vi. p. 209 — 219 ; and the M^moire de M. Turpin on the red Bubstance, which is found on the surfiEu^e of white marbles, AcadMe des Sciences, s6mce du 12 D^mbre, 1836.
t The account of the red-snow, which Captain Ross observed in the Arctic Region, and the specimen of the substance which that officer brought home, excited in no ordinary degree the attention of the naturalists, botanists and chemists, of Europe, and many theories were formed to explain its nature. The most stttisfactory opinion was given bj Professor Agardh, in a memoir published in the twelfdi volume of the Nova Acta Natura Curio- 8ormn, p. 737. The Professor first notices a shower resembling sulphur that fell near Lund, and which was found to be the farina of the fir ; and two showers of apparent blood ; more especially one which fell at Shonen in 1711, occasioned by insects ; but which the Bishop of Swedberg pronounced to be a miracu- lous intervention of the Divinity, and not a natural event. He then mentions most of the parts c^ Europe, where red snow has been observed ; and also the opinions of botanists respecting it ; especially that of Baron Wrangel, that it was a species of lichen, which he termed Lepraria kermesina ; but Dr. Agardh regarded it to be one of the Alg simts. He examined it under the microscope, and found that it consists of minute, blood-red opaque particles, perfectly round and sessile : they were both aggregated, forming little clusters, and solitary. He considers that there is a great affinity between it and the infiisory animals — ^beings which seem to be the link between the animal and the vegetable kingdom, and which pass into each other ; and for the existence of which the agency of light and heat is essential. The protococcus has never been seen except on white bodies. It has been asserted by naturalists that
78 EXTRAORDINARY STORIES CREDIBLE.
In the environs of Padua, in 1819, the polenta pre- pared with the flour of maize appeared covered with numerous little red spots, which were soon considered, in the eyes of the superstitious, as drops of blood. The phenomenon appeared many successive days ; although pious terror sought by fasts, prayers, masses, and even exorcisms to bring it to a termination. Those feelings excited to an ahnost dangerous degree, were at length calmed by a naturalist,* who proved that the red spots were but the results of a mould until then unobserved.t
it is precipitated from the atmosphere ; but this opinion, has not been made out. Agardh supposes that the melting of the snow, and the vivifying power of its light contribute to the production of this plant ; but, I may remark that although these powers may call the plant into existence, when its spawn or germs are present, yet, we are still in the dark as to whence it is derived. An excellent figure and account of the plant is contained in Dr. Gre- ville's Scottish Cryptogamic Flora, vol. iv. p. 231. — ^Ed.
* Revue Encyclop^dique, p. 144 — 5.
t Blood spots, as these were termed, were first observed during the great general plague in the sixth century, and again during the plague of the years 786 and 959. " The same spots also, in the years 1500 to 1503, threw the fedthful into great consternation, because, as on the former occasions, they fancied they recognized in them the form of the cross." Crusius, a writer of that period, even gives the names of many on whose clothes crosses were visible. In the vicinity of Biberach, on the Rhine, a miller's lad, who ventured to make rude sport of those supposed markings of the cross, was seized and burned.' These spots on the last mentioned occasion, spread through G^ermany and France. They were principally red, but they varied in colour. They appeared on the roofs of houses ; on clothes, (whence the name
' Heoker's Epidemics of the Middle Ages, trans. 1844, p. 205.
EXTRAORDINARY STORIES CREDIBLE. 79
The grain of the bearded darnel {Lolium temulentum), mixed with wheat, gives a reddish tinge to bread baked on the ashes ; and if this food be eaten, it occasions violent giddiness. Thus, in all the examples quoted, the natural effect being satis&ctorily made out, the mar- vellous disappears, and with it falls the accusation of imposture or ridiculous credulity with which ancient authors are so frequently accused.
On the surface of the hot mineral springs of Baden in Germany, and on the waters of Ischia, an island in the kingdom of Naples, the zoog^ne is gathered, a singular substance resembling human flesh and skin ; and which, after undergoing the process of distillation, produces the same results as animal matter. M. Gim- bemat"^ has seen rocks covered with this substance near the castle of L^pom^na, and in the valleys of Sinigaglia and Negropont.t This affords an explanation
Lepra vestuum) ; on the veils and neck-handkerchiefs of women ; on household utensils ; and even on meat in larders. G^rge Agricola, a naturalist, who lived at the time, recognized them as lichens, and regarded their appearance as an indication of exten- sive disease.* At so late a period as 1819, a red colouring mould appeared on vegetable and animal substances, in the province of Padua, which excited superstitious apprehensions among the people.** — ^Ed.
* Journal de Pharmacie, 1821, p. 196.
t It is most probably an hsematococcus, one of the Zoocarps, peculiar organized bodies variously classed by botanists and zoologists as animals or plants, owing to the difficulty of deter-
' Agricola, De Peste^ 1554, lib. i. p. 45. ■* Vincenzo Sette, sull* Arrosimento straordinario, &c., quoted by Hecker, 1. c. p. 206, note.
80 EXTRAORDINARY STORIES CREDIBLE.
of those showers of human flesh, which held a place among the crowd of the prodigies of antiquity, and which excited an excusable dread in those who beheld in them an announcement of the decrees of fate, or threatenings of the Divinity; and who would impute to divine intervention every rare and opportune event.*
In 1572, some time after the massacre of St. Bar- tholomew, a hawthorn Uossomed in the Cimeti^re des Innocents ;t fanaticism saw in this pretended prodigy a convincing proof of the approbation of Heaven of the destruction of the Protestants.
When the soldiers of Alexander were digging wells in the vicinity of the Oxus, they remarked that a spring flowed in the tent of the King ; as they had not at first perceived the water, they pretended it had arisen suddenly ; that it was a gift of tlie Gods ; and Alex- ander was willing they should believe it to be a miracle.}
The same wonders have been displayed in very dif- ferent times and places. In 1724, the Chinese troops pursuing in Mongolia, an army of rebels, suffered severely
mining to which diyisian of the organic kingdom of nature the j belong. — Ed.
* There can be no doubt that every event in the system of nature is under the direction of the Deity ; but this does not set aside t^e agency of secondary causes, which are continually operating ; and by whose influence we explain both the ordinary phenomena of nature, and rare and opportune events. — ^En.
t Thuan, Hist. lib. lii. § 10.
t Q, Curt. lib. vii. chap, x^
EXTRAORDINARY STORIES CREDIBLE. 81
from thirst. They discovered a spring near the camp, and cried out that it had issued miraculously from the ground. This favour was attributed to the spirit of the Blue Sea,* which lay in the vicinity of the spot where the mirade was observed ; and the Emperor ordered a monument to be raised to record the event.
The Emperor Isaac Comnenus being overtaken by a violent storm, took shelter under a beach trea The noise of the thunder alarmed him ; he, therefore, changed his place ; and immediately afterwards the beach was up- rooted by the violence of the wind. The preservation of the Emperor's life passed for a miracle owing to the intercession of St. Thecla,t whose day is even now observed by the Christians ; and to whom Isaac Comne- nus dedicated a church.^
The rain which so opportundy succoured Marcus Aurelius in the war against the Marcomans was attri- buted by the Christians to the efficacy of their prayers ; — by Marcus Aurelius to the favour of Jupiter ; — ^by some polytheists to an Egyptian magician ; and by others to the astrologer Julianus; but all concurred in regarding it as a celestial prodigy.
When Thrasybulus came at the head of the exiled
* Timkowski, Voyage a Pekin, t. ii. p. 277.
t Saint Theda was a native of Isauria. She was weH educated, and is renowned for her eloquence, which she is said to have received from St. Paul, by whom she was converted from Paganii^m ; and on whom she attended in several of his apostolical joumies. Butler* 8 Lives of Saints, S(C. p. 498.— Ed.
X Anna Comnenus, Hist, de VEmpereur Alexis Comn^ne, liv. iii« chap. VI.
VOL. I. G
82 extraordtnary'^'stories credible.
Athenians to deliver his country from the yoke of the thirty tyrants,* a fiery meteor illumined his path : it was regarded as a divine fire, sent by the Gods to guide him in the darkness of the night, and to conduct him by roads unknown to his enemies.
The felling of aerolites has so frequently happened, that it may concur with the moment of a combat : and such a coincidence probably gave rise to the fiction that Jupiter rained stones on the enemies of Hercules.f Were we to credit the Arabs, a similar shower crushed at the foot of the walls of Mecca, the Ethiopians, who were the profane besiegers of the sacred city.} It is also related that Basil, chief of the Bogomiles returning in the evening from the palace of the Emperor || to his cell, was assailed by a shower of stones, not any of which were thrown by a human hand : and that the pheno- menon was accompanied by a violent earthquake. The enemies of Basil deemed this phenomenon a super- natural punishment upon the heretical monk.
The inhabitants of Nantes, at the time when their
* S, Clement, Alex, Stromat, lib. i.
t This fkble may also be explained by supposing it a specimen of the figurative style. The pebbles which cover the plain where the battle was fought would furnish abundant ammunition to the warriors armed with slings, who under the auspices of their national God, the Tlrynthian Hercules, invaded the south of Graul and fought the natives.
t Bruce, Travels to discover the Source of the NUe, vol. ii. p. 446—447.
U Anna Comnenus, Histoire de VEmpereur Alexis Comnene, liv. XV. chap. ix.
EXTRAORDINARY STORIES CREDIBLE. 83
country was under subjection to the arms of Julius Caesar, took refuge in the marshes, which form at some distance the river of Boulogne. Their asylum ^ilarged, and became a town, known under the name of Herba- tilicum. In 534, the soil on which it was built, having been undermined by water, sank into a lake, which swallowed up the town ; one part of it situated on high ground alone remained, and is at this day the village of Herbauge. Hagiographers promulgated as a mirade this disaster which is so naturally explained ; and we are told that St. Martin, who was sent by St. Felix, Bishop of Nantes to convert the inhabitants of Herbatilicum, finding them immoveable in the faith of their fathers, and in consequence of the reception he met with, departed in despair ; the town immediately was engulphed, and a lake usurped its place, presenting an enduring monument of the chastisement inflicted on unbelief.*
In the bay of Douamanez, similar marine ruins may be observed. These, says ancient tradition, are the remains of the town of Is, which was swallowed up by the sea in the commencement of the fiflh century. Gralon, King of the country, alone saved himsdf ; and the impression made on the rock by the hoof of the horse that carried him away is still pointed out.f Inundar tion is a local phenomenon which cannot be a matter of surprise; other ruins on the same coast attest the
* Actes de St. Martin, Ahh4 de Vertou, in the Preuves de VHi»^ toire de Bretagne de Dom Morice, tome i. p. L96. See also La Vie de St. Martin, Oct. 24, and La Vie de St. FUhert, August 20.
t Cambray, Voyage dans le d4partement de Finisthre, tome ii. p. 221 -224.
O 2
. 84 EXTRAORDINARY STORIES CREDIBLE.
ravages of nature : but it has ever been, in all ages, the inclination of man to take advantage of natural disastei's, and to announce them as preternatural events intended for the benefit of mortality.
The ignorance of the fact that certain phenomena are peculiar to certain localities, has caused some events to be either revered as supernatural interpositions, or rejected as impossibilities. Among such are pretended showers of nutritive substances. We are told that in 1824 and in 1828, a shower of this kind fell in a district of Persia; and so abundant was the rain, that in some places it lay five or six inches deep on the ground. The supposed fallen substance, however, was a well known species of lichen, which the cattle, and the sheep eat up with great avidity ; and which was also converted into very eatable bread.* How many natural occurrences have thus passed for miracles.
If the multitude have often regarded as prodigies some local phenomena, the periodical return of which they did not reckon upon, ignorance also, or forgetful- ness, has often obscured the knowledge of the natural facts, even to the priests themselves, who proclaimed them as prodigies. The following example affords a proof of this remark. The iElians worshipped Jupiter Apomyios (the fly catcher) ; and at the commencement of the Olympic games, a sacrifice to the God was per- formed for the banishment of all the flies. Hercules in the place, where a temple was afterwards raised to him, invoked the God Myagrusf (also a fly catcher), on which
* Sdance de VAcadimie des Sciences, Aug. 4, 1826.
t Myagrus, or Myodes, was an Egyptian demi-god.— Ed.
EXTRAORDINARY STORIES CREDIBLE. 85
account the story adds, the flies were never after seen in that temple. "* But independent of the use of secret means, such as certain fumigations, which drive away flies, the disappearance of these insects was only a natural consequence of the profound obscurity which always reigned in heathen sanctuaries. In order to discover whether the prodigy bestowed the surname on the God, or whether the surname of the God was the origin of the pretended prod^, let us examine where the worship of the fly-catching God commenced.
In Syria and in Phenicia the God Belzebuth or Baalzebud,t the Ood or lord of the flies, was wor- shipped; and at the approach of Pluto, or Hercules the serpent, the constellation which rises in October, all the flies disappeared. But such a coincidence could only occur and be consecrated by religion in a country where the presence of the flies amounts almost to a plague ; and where the revolution of the seasons regulates their periodical return.
The inhabitants of Cyrene made sacrifices to the God Achro to be delivered from flies.} This draws us
* SoUnus, cap. i. Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. x. cap. xxviii. and lib.