some foundation. Great quantities of a kind of transparent ore, pointed at one end, are found in Angola, which the inhabitants call tarc, and believe to be engendered in the air, and that it falls from thence in thundering weather[1]. The peasants in Norway say, that the thunder darts down the stones which they call thunderbolts, aiming them at the Troll, a kind of witches, or infernal spirits of the night, who otherwise would destroy the whole world[2].
One of the most remarkable passages which I have met with upon this subject is in Lassels's[3] Italian Voyage. He says that in the cabinet of the Canonigo Setalis at Milan, there was a piece of a thunderbolt, which the Canon said he himsel cut out of the thigh of a man that had been stricken with it. The fact may not be true, but I would not pronounce it impossible.
