It was in pursuit of this that he returned to Ireland, returned to the peat bogs where he’d first observed the cones of fire. He sat in the dark and the cold, watching and waiting for a return of that most extraordinary sight.

It did not return.

He did, however, experience something not entirely unrelated. The peat of those bogs, when cut, emitted an unmistakable, albeit brief, glow. It occurred when the peat was disturbed, and the light disappeared almost on the instant. Could this, he wondered, be related to what he’d seen more than nine months earlier? Could there be a connection?

Determined to know more and return to London with answers, he made an examination of the peat himself. He cut a bit, causing the momentary glow to continue. As it disappeared, he immediately sliced off a bit more, and the glow to returned.

He guarded the slice of peat fiercely as he returned to the cottage he had let for a few weeks in pursuit of the answers he required. No one else was present; he could not permit the distraction. Palmer laid out his medical tools, quite as if he was about to undertake an examination of a patient or a dissection in a lab. He set his large cutting of peat on the table amidst his instruments. He lit a lamp and brought it near. Palmer set magnifying spectacles on his nose and bent over the peat block.

A bit of careful cutting and breaking revealed the presence of tiny white worms no more than half an inch in length. Palmer poked at them and nudged them and, in whatever way he could, caused the animals a bit of irritation, hoping to discover that they were the source of the soft glow he’d seen in the bog peat.

It did not seem to be enough.

Palmer refused to believe he was wrong yet again. The College of Physicians had dismissed his discoveries and hypotheses because he could not provide any evidence. He would have it this time. He swore he would. He would not rest without answers. Could not.

What else could irritate or cause excitation in the worms without causing them any harm? He looked around his cottage, searching for something, anything. His eyes fell upon a bottle of strong spirits. He could not place the worms in the alcohol as that might drown the creatures. The vapors, though, might prove sufficient.

He took careful hold of one worm with his smallest pair of tissue forceps. He filled a small, shallow dish with the alcohol, then held the worm over it, near enough for the vapors to envelop the creature. Mere moments later, it began to glow.

At last! At last he had succeeded in forcing a naturally occurring glow to appear!

The phosphorescence was a brilliant, beautiful, clear green that illuminated the entirety of the worm’s body. But it lasted a mere instant.