Goodness gracious, a great ball of fire. The description below, which appeared in the “Naval Chronicle” for 1808, apparently describes an occurrence of ball lightning more than 50 years earlier. A year after this entry, incidentally, it was reported that three “balls of fire” “attacked” the British ship HMS Warren Hastings.
The “Naval Chronicle,” though it contains a great deal of military history, is full of such anecdotes. Regular readers of this blog will be pleased to note that the exact longitude is noted in the entry.
(Under Marine Scenery)
BALL OF FIRE.
On board the Montague, under the command of Admiral Chambers, in lat. 42 degrees 48' long. 9 degrees 3', on the 4th of November, 1749, about ten minutes before twelve, as Mr. Chalmers was taking an aberration, one of the quarter-masters desired he would look to the windward. On directing his eye that way, he observed a large ball of blue fire, about three miles distance from them; they immediately lowered the top-sails, but it came so fast upon them, that before they could raise the main tack, they observed the ball rise almost perpendicularly, and not above forty or fifty yards from the main chains, when it went off with an explosion as great as if hundreds of cannon had been discharged at the same time, leaving behind it a strong sulphureous smell. By this explosion the main-top-mast was shattered in pieces, and the main-mast sent quite down to the keel. Five men were knocked down, and one of them was greatly bruised, and some other damage, of less importance, was done to the ship. Just before the explosion, the ball seemed to be of the size of a large millstone.
XIX, 53
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