Chapter 8 THE EFFECTS OF LIGHTNING ON METALS, OBJECTS, HOUSES, ETC.

When lightning strikes the earth, it makes straight for metals. Their perfect conducting powers place them in the first rank of conductors, and the innumerable cases of lightning with which they are associated have gained them a certain celebrity in the annals of thunder.

We know, indeed, the preference of the spark for metals; we know it nurses a veritable passion for nails, wire, bell-pulls, that it dotes on rain-spouts, leaden pipes, and telegraph wires, that it is very feminine in its adoration of jewels, which it sublimates sometimes with a truly fantastic dexterity.

Now and then lightning deviates from its path, and performs acrobatic feats, elfin capers to reach the objects it covets. On April 24, 1842, it struck the church of Brexton, springing on the cross of the steeple at first and running down the stem, but, arrived at the masonry which supported it, broke it into pieces; then with one bound it fell upon a second conductor, whose support was also broken. Finally, it struck a third conductor much lower down.

The fluid often searches for metals hidden beneath non-conductors, which it breaks or pierces. It avoids the mattress to pursue the iron of the bed, glances off the windows to glide over the curtain-rods, or the lead of the sash. It has been seen to penetrate thick walls to reach the iron safes hidden behind them.

We have already mentioned the case of the woman who, without having been killed, had her ear-ring split. Well, we have a certain number of similar examples to that.

On June 1, 1809, in a boarding-school for young ladies, at Bordeaux, a gold chain, worn by one of the young ladies, was melted by the lightning, which left a black indented line in its place, which, however, soon passed off. The lady was struck, but recovered consciousness within a few hours, being none the worse. Her slender chain, worn in three rows round her neck, had been cut into five pieces. Some of the fragments showed signs of fusion, and had been carried to a distance.

Other examples, in which the consequences were more dramatic, will show ladies the dangers of a love of adornment.

On September 21, 1901, during a violent thunderstorm which burst over the region of Narbonne, a fireball fell in the domain of Castelou. A young girl of fourteen was fatally struck by the meteor. The gold chain which she wore round her throat was completely evaporated. There was not a trace of it to be found.

It is not unusual to see gold chains broken, melted, partially or completely, in the pocket which had held them.

Thus, lightning melted a watch and chain into a single lump in the pocket of a man killed on board a passenger boat.

Bracelets, hairpins, and even precious stones are sometimes very strangely altered.

As for watches, without speaking of the magnetization observed after a violent electrical discharge, it has been remarked that the movement became slower. In some cases they stopped short, and marked the exact instant when the lightning stopped them.

When the ship Eagle was struck by lightning, none of the passengers were injured, but all their watches stopped at the moment the shock took place.

At other times there are peculiarities in the works which are absolutely inexplicable. The following observation, related by Biot, is a curious case in point.

A young man was slightly struck by lightning in the street of Grenelle-Saint-Germain. His watch was in no wise hurt outside, but, although it was only a quarter-past eleven, the hands pointed to a quarter to five.

Convinced that it was in need of repair, the young man placed it on his table, intending to take it to the watchmaker; but next day, thinking he would wind it up to make sure of the extent of the damage, he saw, to his amazement, the hands moved and kept regular time.

In some instances the case of the watch is seriously injured, while the works are none the worse.

A man wore a watch with a double cap attached to a gold chain. The chain was broken, some of the links soldered together. The cap had been perforated, and the gold spilt in his pocket. The watch itself had not been altered.

But if lightning sometimes stops the works of watches, it also produces the contrary effect.

Beyer relates that a flash of lightning, having entered a room and broken the corner of a glass, set a watch going which had been stopped for a long time.

I find the following note amongst my papers: "M. Coulvier-Gravier, director of the meteoric observatory of the palace of Luxembourg, told me yesterday that on Sunday, April 8, at 9.35 in the evening, a watch (wound up), which had stopped a week previously, went on at the moment lightning struck the lightning conductor on the Luxembourg above these rooms."

Often enough the case is badly injured: the polish is rubbed off the metal, it is melted, bored through, and even dented, without any trace of fusion.

A case of the latter is rare. Here is an example, however.

In the month of June, 1853, a man from Aigremont having been killed by lightning, his silver watch was found in his watch-pocket completely smashed.

Indeed, one of the most common effects of lightning on watches is the magnetization to which the various pieces of steel are subjected. We have a considerable number of records concerning these magnetic properties. In one case the balance had its poles so well pointed that, when placed on a raft, it served as a compass.

We may observe, by the way, that clocks and chronometers are sometimes as much injured also by the spark. It often gives an energetic twist to the needles, or to the spring for regulating the strokes, or it even melts the wheel-works, either partially or completely.

It is difficult to form any idea of the various operations of lightning; here it hurls itself down like a fiery torrent, there it makes itself so tiny that it can pass through the smallest apertures.

Does it not even slip under women's corsets, melting the busks and the little knobs which serve to hook them.

It even attacks the various metal articles which set off our garments, even to the shoe-buckles, buttons, etc.

Keys are, as a rule, very ill-treated by the fire of heaven: they are twisted, flattened, melted or soldered to the ring from which they hang.

On May 12, 1890, a man living at Troyes returned to his house while a violent storm was raging. The moment he put his key into the lock, the white gleam of a dazzling flash of lightning surrounded him, the ring holding his keys was broken in his hand, and they were scattered on the threshold.

At times, too, scissors, needles, etc., are snatched out of the hands of the workers, and carried some distance off when they are not reduced to vapour.

At Saint-Dizier (Haute-Marne) in July, 1886, lightning fell on the workshop of M. Penon, a chain-maker. Five or six workmen were finishing their work or getting ready to leave.

Entering by the window near which M. Penon-who was absent at the time-usually worked, the fluid grazed the bellows which were opposite, and caught up a piece of it, which one would have thought was cut off with a knife. Turning to the left, and passing behind a chain-maker, who felt a violent shock, it passed to a heap of chains which it did not damage much. All the links in a chain of about a metre long were, however, soldered together; the whole chain seemed to be galvanized, and the soldering was not easily broken by hand. Pieces of iron which had been cut and prepared for the manufacture, were found twisted and soldered together in the same way. Finally the lightning snatched the iron hoops from a tub, and, returning the same way, broke a piece of wood from a board, so as to go through the lower part of a partition, the masonry of which was carried away for a length of fifty centimetres.

Very often lightning rivals the most skilful cabinet-makers: iron or copper nails are pulled out of a piece of furniture with a most amazing skill, without doing any harm to the material they kept in place. Ordinarily they are thrown far away. Here are two examples of this curious phenomenon:-

On September 23, 1824, lightning penetrated a house at Campbeltown; the copper nails in the chairs were pulled out very precisely, without the stuff being spoiled. Some were conveyed to the corner of a box standing at the opposite end of the room, others were so solidly fixed in the partitions, that it was only with great difficulty that they were pulled out (Howar). At another time, close to Marseilles, lightning slipped into a drawing-room, one might say, like a robber, one evening, and pilfered all the nails out of a couch covered with satin. Then it departed by the chimney through which it had entered. As for the nails, they were found, two years afterwards, under a tile!

Locks, screws, door-knobs are frequently pulled out by the fluid.

Sometimes metal objects of much larger size, such as forks or agricultural instruments, share the same fate. Violently torn out of the hands of their owners, they start upon an aerial voyage, borne on the incandescent wings of the wrathful lightning.

Workers in the fields have often been warned of the dangers to which they expose themselves beneath a thundery sky, by carrying their implements with the point in the air. Each year the same accidents occur in precisely similar circumstances.

The electric fluid, invited by the metal point which acts like a little lightning conductor, darts from the clouds upon this centre of attraction, and runs into the ordinary reservoir by the intermedial body of the man, who plays the r?le of conductor.

Two labourers were spreading manure in a field, when a storm came on. It was at the beginning of May, 1901. Obliged to give up work, they were thinking of returning home. Each carried an American fork over his shoulder. They had come within 150 metres of the village, when a formidable burst of flame took place over their heads. Instantly the two labourers fell, never to rise again.

In 1903 I made notes of several cases of this kind, from which I shall quote the two following:-

On June 2, a labourer from the hamlet of Pair, commune of Taintrux (Vosges), aged forty, was sharpening a scythe in an orchard close to his house. Suddenly a terrific clap of thunder was heard, and the unfortunate man fell down stone dead.

On the following day, in the same region, at Uzemain, not far from Epinal, a young man, twenty-eight years of age, went to get grass in the country. All at once he was struck by lightning, and his horse, which he was holding by the bridle, as well. The poor fellow had been guilty of the imprudence of putting his scythe on the cart with its point in the air.

On May 27, in the Vosges, the lightning fell on a labourer, Cyrille Bégin, who was driving a cart to which were yoked four horses. The unhappy man was struck, as well as two of the horses.

Some authorities have attributed a doubly preservative influence to umbrellas. The first is undoubtedly to shelter us from the rain; the second, more doubtful, is the gift of preserving us to a certain extent from the strokes of the terrible meteor. Silk, having the property of a veritable repulsion to lightning, one might really believe that umbrellas, whose covers are often made of this fabric, are protectors against the fire of heaven. But the records which we possess are not conclusive; if, now and then, the discharge becomes distributed by means of the ribs, it also very often happens that it runs along the metal parts of the handle to whatever pieces of metal may be on the person, finally striking the soil through the human body.

On July 13, 1884, in the province of Liége, a man and a woman sheltering under the same umbrella were struck by lightning. The man was killed instantly. His garments were in tatters, and the soles torn from his shoes. His pipe was thrown twenty yards away, as well as the artificial flowers in his companion's hat. The latter, who was carrying the umbrella, was stunned.

At a season when, as a rule, thunder is not dreaded-December 9, 1884, to wit-two men, who were walking on either side of a schoolboy holding an umbrella, were killed by lightning. The child was merely thrown down, and got off with a few trifling wounds.

In each of these cases, the person who carried the umbrella suffered less from the electric discharge, but did not escape altogether, nevertheless. It may be remarked, also, that the chief victims were just under the points of the frame, and that in all probability the electricity passed through these points.

The fusion of metals is one of the lightning's most ordinary performances; it has occurred at times in considerable quantities.

On April 2, 1807, a fulminant discharge struck the windmill at Great Marton, in Lancashire. A thick iron chain, used for hoisting up the corn, must have been, if not actually melted, at any rate considerably softened. Indeed, the links were dragged downwards by the weight of the lower part, and meeting, became soldered in such a way that, after the stroke of lightning, the chain was a veritable bar of iron.

How, one asks, can this truly formidable fusion take place during the swift passage of the electric spark, which disappears, it may well be said, "with lightning speed."

What magic force gives the fiery bolt from the sky the power to transform the atmosphere into a veritable forge, in which kilos of metal are melted in the thousandth part of a second!

Great leaden pipes melt like a lump of sugar in a glass of water, letting the contents escape.

In Paris, June 19, 1903, lightning broke tempestuously into a kitchen, and, melting the gaspipes, set fire to the place.

On another occasion, the meteor breaking into the workshop of a locksmith, files and other tools hanging from a rack on the wall were soldered to the nails with which the iron ferrules of their handles came in contact, and were with difficulty pulled apart.

A house at Dorking, Sussex, received a visit from lightning on July 16, 1750. Nails, bolts, and divers small objects were soldered together in groups of six, seven, eight, or ten, just as if they had been thrown into a crucible.

"Money melts, leaving the purse uninjured," says Seneca. "The sword-blade liquifies, while the scabbard remains intact. The iron in the javelin runs down the handle, which is none the worse."

We could add other examples, quite as unheard of, as those enumerated by the preceptor of Nero.

A hat-wire melted into nothing, though the paper in which it was wrapped was not burnt.

Knives and forks were melted without the least injury being done to the linen which enveloped them, by the presence of the fluid.

These proceedings give proof of exquisitely delicate feelings; it is a pity the lightning does not always behave in the same way.

Wires, and particularly bell-wires, make the most agreeable playthings for the lightning, judging from the frequency with which they are struck.

Sometimes, in the middle of a fearful thunderstorm, the doorbell is violently rung; the porter rushes to open the door for the impatient visitor, only to receive a shock of lightning by way of salvo. The mysterious hand which pulled the bell is already far away; but it has left its impress on the bell, and the guiding ray follows the metal wire in all its windings, passing through holes no bigger than the head of a pin. The wires are often melted into globules, and scattered around in all directions.

The Abbé Richard has seen globules from a bell-wire fall into coffee cups, and become embedded in the porcelain, without the latter being any the worse.

Metal wires supporting espaliers and vines are often compromising to the safety of their neighbourhood, especially when they are against a house.

Without renouncing the succulent peach, or the golden chasselas grapes, propped on espaliers, we ought to see that they are so arranged that they do not act as lightning-conductors to our habitation.

In August, 1868, in a farm amongst the mountains near Lyons, lightning fell at a distance of about fifteen metres from a dwelling where there were four people; the meteor, conducted by the wire supporting a vine on a trellis, followed it into the house, and knocked the four people down.

One could almost believe that lightning takes a certain pleasure in looking at its diaphanous and fugitive form in the mirrors hung as ornaments in our drawing-rooms.

In 1889, a very coquettish flash of lightning rushed to a mirror, breaking more than ten openings in the gilt frame. Then it evaporated the gilding, spreading it over the surface of the glass, while on the silvered back the evaporation of this latter metal produced the most beautiful electric traceries.

Sometimes the tinfoil or pieces of melted glass are thrown to a great distance; and at times the fusion of the glass is so complete that the débris hangs down like little stalactites.

As for the gilding of the frames, it is often carefully removed by the lightning to a distance, and applied to the gilding of objects which were never intended to receive this style of decoration.

It is just the same with the gilding on clocks, cornices, church ornaments, etc.

There are innumerable examples coming under this category. Here are a few:-

On March 15, at Naples, lightning flashed through the rooms of Lord Tylney, who was holding a reception that evening. More than five hundred were present; without any person being injured, the lightning took the gilding clean off cornices, curtain-poles, couches, and door-posts; then it shook its booty in a fine gold dust over the guests and the floor.

On June 4, 1797, lightning struck the steeple of Philippshofen in Bohemia, and went off with the gold of the clock, to gild the lead in the chapel window.

In 1761, it went into the church of the Academical College in Vienna, and took the gold from the cornice of one of the altar pillars to put it on a silver vase.

It seems difficult for lightning to resist the attraction of gildings. It was reported that when a house in the Rue Plumet in Paris was struck in 1767, among several frames hanging in a room, the spark only touched one which was gilt. None of the others were struck.

In spite of this extraordinarily independent behaviour, lightning has not so much liberty of action as we might be tempted to believe; it obeys certain laws which are not yet defined, and its gestures, although apparently wild and capricious, are not the result of fortuitous circumstances. To allude to it as chance may serve as a refuge from ignorance, but it does not, any more than we can, explain the extraordinary phenomena.

Why are certain organic or non-organic bodies visited repeatedly by lightning? We need not have recourse to magic to explain.

It is simply because they serve as favourable conductors for the fluid. One of the best-known examples of this kind is that of the church of Antrasme. It was struck by lightning in 1752. It melted the gold of the picture frames adorning the sanctuary, blackened the edges of the niches in which the images stood, scorched the pewter vases enclosed in a press in the sacristy; then, lastly, it made two very neat holes at the end of a side chapel, by which it took its departure. The traces of this disaster were removed with all haste, but twelve years later, on June 20, 1764, the lightning returned to the charge. It penetrated the church for the second time, but the most remarkable fact is, that it worked havoc similar to that done on its first visit. Again the sacred picture-frames were despoiled of their gilding, the niches of the saints blackened, the pewter vases scorched, and the two holes in the chapel reopened. What demon guided the lightning in these scenes of pillage? The end of the story gives us the clue. Soon after the catastrophe the use of the lightning-conductor became general throughout the whole world. The church was put under the protection of a rod of iron, after the principles of Franklin, and ever since lightning allows the faithful to pray in peace within the sanctuary, and has never returned to profane the church at Antrasme.

Such incidents are of fairly frequent occurrence; they give us a chance of understanding the supposed preferences of lightning.

In the last chapter we shall see curious cases of "galvanoplasty," of the nature of the following: amongst others, that of a piece of gold in a purse, which was silvered over with silver taken out of another part of the purse, through the leather of the compartment.

What a trick of prestidigitation! On our music-hall stages this turn would have a great success.

But our last word has not been said about lightning. Just a few more.

One of the most curious effects produced on metals, is the magnetic polarity communicated to objects in steel and iron, no matter what they be. We have already quoted a remarkable case, that of the ascending lightning.

A tailor was slightly touched by the spark; the day after the accident he found his needles were magnetized: they clung closely to each other as they were taken out of the case.

Another case of magnetization has been recorded, where certain objects, which were struck by lightning, had power to raise three times their own weight.

This magnetization is almost always temporary. Examples are known, however, where objects preserved the magnetic powers that they acquired in the moment of the shock. And one can understand the terror inspired by lightning in uncultured minds, when, after the passing of the meteor, they see common things suddenly animated by a fantastic vitality, fine needles attract and raise very much larger bodies than themselves, and impart a feverish agitation to any pieces of steel or iron that may be placed near them.

What a lively impression these curious phenomena must have made on the minds of men in the days when sorcery was in fashion, and when lightning was, according to the belief then popular, at the service of heaven and hell! But, nowadays, sorcery is fallen into disuse; the magnetization of metal bodies, even when the result of lightning, is something too well known to be attributed to any connection with Satan.

And yet the gambols of electricity are truly extraordinary.

In the month of June, 1873, the electric fluid penetrated into a butcher's shop, quite calmly followed the iron bars from which the quarters of meat were hanging. From one of the hooks a whole ox was suspended. All at once the skinned carcase was galvanized by the electric current, and during several instants it was seen convulsed by the most frightful contortions.

Again, on June 28, 1879, a concierge in the Avenue de Clichy was sweeping his courtyard when the lightning broke at one metre above his head. The poor man escaped with the fright. The fluid ran up the leaden pipes and entered a room, where it broke the mirrors and a clock, injured the ceiling, and got off by breaking the panes in the window. On the upper storey it got into a lodging occupied by two old women, where it caused the following damage: one of the women was holding a bowl of milk, the bottom of the bowl was cracked and the milk spilled on the floor; some money which was in a wooden bowl disappeared and could not be found. The clock was stopped at half-past six, the pendulum unhooked; and a hole made in a glass globe the size of a five-shilling piece. Finally, a woman in bed on the same landing saw the bed split in two by the lightning, which disappeared in the wall. None of these persons were injured.

As a general rule, indeed, when lightning breaks into houses, although it often does a great deal of harm, it almost always spares the people who may be there. One is safer there than anywhere else.

Sometimes the walls are pierced or merely hollowed. This perforation of the walls is one of the most common effects of the meteor on buildings.

The thickness of the perforated walls is very variable.

At the Castle of Clermont, in Beauvaisis, there was a formidable old wall, built in the time of the Romans, so tradition has it, which was ten feet thick, and the cement was as hard as stone, so that it was almost impossible to break it. "One day," says Nollet, "a flash of lightning struck it, and instantly a hole, two feet deep and equally wide, was made in it, the débris being thrown more than fifty feet away."

On June 17, 1883, at Louvemont (Haute-Marne), the wall of a bakehouse, fifty-five centimetres wide, was broken in by lightning.

The church at Lugdivan was struck by lightning in 1761. Two furrows like those made by a plough were to be seen on the wall.

One of the most dreadful acts of which lightning is capable is that of hurling considerable masses of stone and rock, broken or intact, to great distances. We have numerous examples of this terrible phenomenon. Here are a few:-

On August 23, 1853, thunder burst over the belfry of Maison-Ponthieu. The explosion scattered the slates and beams of the roof, and shot a stone, measuring thirty-five centimetres, to a distance of twenty metres. Rough stones, weighing more than forty pounds, were torn up and thrown almost horizontally as far as an opposite wall thirty feet away.

At Fuzie-en-Fetlar, in Scotland, towards the end of the eighteenth century, lightning broke, in about two seconds at most, a mica-schist rock of one hundred and fifty feet long, by ten broad, and in some parts four feet thick; this it split into great pieces. One, measuring twenty-six feet long by ten broad, and four in thickness, fell on the ground twenty centimetres off. Enormous stones are thrown, at times, in different directions.

In 1762 lightning struck the belfry of Breag Church in Cornwall, broke the stone pinnacle of the edifice, and threw one of the stones, weighing at least a hundred-weight and a half, on the roof of the apsis, in a southerly direction, fifty-five metres away.

In a northerly direction another huge stone was found at 365 metres or so from the belfry; and a third, still larger, to the south-east of the church.

In certain cases the lightning unites a fantastic skill with this excessive brutality. For instance, a wall has been removed intact without being broken in any part. Here is a record of one such extraordinary occurrence:-

On August 6, 1809, at Swinton, near Manchester, during a deluge of rain, the lightning all at once filled a brick building, in which coal was stored, full of pestilential, sulphureous vapour. Above it was a cistern half full. Suddenly the edifice, the walls of which measured thirty centimetres in thickness, were torn out of the ground, the foundations being sixty centimetres deep, and was transported in an upright position to a distance of ten metres.

The weight of this mass, so oddly and so rapidly moved by lightning, was estimated at ten thousand kilograms.

In many cases, on the contrary, the subtle fluid has pulverized a hard stone on the spot and reduced it to powder.

Tiles and slates are very often torn off the roofs: the lightning makes them fly through the air. Sometimes it is content to perforate them with a multitude of little holes.

As for chimneys, they are generally very ill-treated by the meteor. The blows of which they are victims are to be accounted for easily, for they offer perfect powers of conducting to the fulminant matter, firstly, because of their prominence on the summit of the building, especially when they are surmounted by a vane. Again, the flue is often in cast-iron, and if it is bricked it is supported by bars of iron. The surface of the interior is covered with a layer of soot, an excellent conductor, and a stove-pipe often opens into it. Then, too, the hearth and its surroundings are more or less made of metal. Finally, the column of smoke and of hot, damp air rising into the air, shows the lightning the way.

The latter often accepts this invitation, and very frequently gets into a house by the chimney, where everything seems ready for its reception.

Rafters and doors are sometimes bored through with one or two holes by the spark, and split or furrowed more or less deeply. A curious fact is that it is rare to find the slightest trace of combustion round them.

In the month of August, 1887, lightning struck the belfry of the church at Abrest (Allier), carrying off part of the roof.

It destroyed the walls of the porch, and in both sides of the swing doors bored two holes, each as big as a pigeon's egg, and as symmetrically as if they had been made by the hand of man.

The cleavage of beams is amongst the most extraordinary injuries to be observed on woodwork. Lightning works with wrought wood just as it does when the tree is in full sap: it reduces it to rags, and follows the direction of the fibres.

With what crimes lightning is charged! When it is a question of robbing a house, it spares nothing in its way.

The window-panes fly in pieces, and sometimes are thrown a long way off. Often they are melted and disappear totally.

In July, 1783, at Campo Sampiero Castello (Padua), lightning struck a building full of hay; the windows had glass in them, and the panes were melted without the hay catching fire!

A still more astonishing phenomenon is that of the total disappearance of the glass panes, observed at the Castle of Upsal, on August 24, 1760. Lightning visited this edifice and then took flight, carrying off sixteen panes out of a window. Not the smallest fragment of them was ever found.

Perhaps, as often happens, terrific heat was generated, and the glass evaporated.

If we follow the track of lightning through rooms, very singular effects may be seen on the furniture. Chests of drawers and wardrobes are gutted, and the contents pulled out and strewn about the room. In the middle of August, 1887, a house at Francines, near Limoges, was struck by lightning. It fell in a room where the master of the house was in bed. He felt a terrific shock, and saw his eiderdown pierced through and through by the perfidious fluid, and a chest of drawers with all its contents broken. Continuing on its way, the lightning demolished the door and entered another room.

A man who was asleep in it was killed. His wife by his side and his little girl felt nothing, but a pillow on which one of them had her head was thrown to a distance. Finally, the meteor went through the floor, broke a large clock on the ground floor, setting fire to everything on its way.

On June 1, 1903, a fulminant ray fell on the church of Cussy-la-Colonne (C?te d'Or). To start, it turned the clock tower upside down, broke a clock, then opened a cupboard in the sacristy in which there were various articles, and broke them all.

In April, 1886, lightning did great damage in the church at Montredon (Tarn). It demolished the steeple to an extent of three metres, several bells, and carried the enormous iron bar which supported them a long way off. The roof of the church was burst in and the tiles were pulverized in several places by the falling masonry. In the interior a bench was broken, an image of Christ reduced to powder, and a metal image of St. Peter twisted.

We may remark, by the way, that churches are very often struck by lightning, doubtless owing to the height of the steeple above the edifice.

We have innumerable notes about ruined steeples, turrets knocked off, the plundering of priestly objects. Sculptures and pictures adorning the sanctuary are often destroyed, and the altar itself shattered. Cases of priests struck while officiating are not uncommon. As for the faithful killed while at church, they may be counted by the hundred.

Without wishing to call lightning a miscreant or an infidel, one is obliged to confess it fails in respect for holy places.

However, the quips and cranks of lightning observed in dwellings are no less varied and curious.

Here are some remarkable accounts:-

One night during a terrible thunderstorm, lightning came down the chimney of a room where two people were asleep. The husband awoke with a start and, believing the house to be on fire, groped his way to the mantelpiece to get a candle, but was stopped by a heap of rubbish. Everything, in fact, of which the chimney had once consisted was heaped up in the middle of the room. The mantelshelf, violently torn off, had been partly melted, the clock had had the door of the case pulled off, and all the window-panes were broken. On the lower storey, another clock was similarly demolished, the floor was torn up and the tiles thrown with such force against the ceiling that there were splinters sticking all over it.

In the month of April, 1866, at Bure (Luxembourg), the thunder, which had been rumbling for some time, suddenly crashed down all at once about midnight with the most appalling violence, so that the ground seemed to tremble and the houses rock on their foundations.

All the inhabitants, aroused in terror; instinctively several of them sprang out of bed, thinking that their dwellings must be annihilated. Every one had the presentiment of disaster, which was only too real: the fluid had just struck the house of a poor workman, and left a scene of frightful destruction behind it.

The roof had been carried off, the chimney destroyed, the windows reduced, so to speak, to atoms, the principal door smashed and hurled to a distance; of the furniture there was nothing left but shapeless wreckage. But what was most extraordinary is, that this catastrophe only cost the life of one person, while all that were in the house might well have been killed.

Three children, sleeping in an upper storey, found themselves thrown outside the house without knowing how they got there, but safe and sound, though the bed was broken to pieces. The father and mother were asleep on the ground floor, with two little children, one of whom was at the breast. This latter was flung out of his cradle and thrown against the wall, without being hurt.

At this moment the mother sprang out of bed to succour those dear to her, but while the poor woman was in the act of lighting a candle, the lightning struck her lifeless on the floor. The husband, who was in the bed with another child, only felt a severe shaking. The lightning, having accomplished its work of destruction, finally broke an opening in the lower part of the wall, went into the stable adjoining the house, and there killed the only cow that was in it.

In the month of August, 1868, at Liége, Rue du Calvaire, at the point where the mountain of St. Laurent is highest, lightning first of all struck two earthenware chimney-pots which were higher than the roofs. One of these pots was thrown to the ground and broken, the other disappeared. Then the electric spark ripped off a great part of the roof. All the tiles were scattered round the house. A young servant slept in a garret under the roof; the lightning penetrated into the garret through a little hole in the wall just above the head of the maid's bed; the latter was flung into the middle of the room without the slightest bruise, though the wood of the bed was bored through in two places.

From there, the spark going through the wall again, went down to the ground floor, following the gutter pipe, which it broke. It re-entered the house by making a little hole in the wall, pulled off the plaster which was round two nails holding up a mirror, broke part of the frame; again left the room, entered a little room adjoining where six people were sleeping-the father, the mother, and four young children; pierced the wall to enter a locksmith's, scattered all the tools, tore out a drawer, broke it into a thousand pieces, and threw the contents on the floor, broke all the panes of glass; again went through the wall, went to a hutch with a rabbit in it, killed the animal, and at last went into the garden, where it dug a double trench several feet long.

The house was occupied by two families of ten persons, none of whom were struck. Terrified by the report they rose instantly; the smell of smoke filling all the rooms told them of the danger they had just escaped.

On another occasion one sees the woodwork of the chimney burnt, as well as a press, a looking-glass, and a clock badly injured by the lightning; which before retiring, and by way of being a good joke, turns a felt hat upside down, and unscrews the andirons.

Examples of this kind are very numerous. We constantly speak of the caprices of the lightning, but what name could one give to anything so burlesque or incomprehensible as the following:-

In the month of July, 1896, lightning fell in the village of Boulens, on a cottage almost covered with thatch. Entering through the chimney, which it destroyed, it first threw down a rack, pulling out the hinge which held it up, and making in the place of the said hinge a hole right through the wall. Afterwards it lifted a pot and the lid from the hearth over to the middle of the floor, tearing up some tiles as it went. It broke the latch of the hall door, as well as the key which was in the lock; this latter was found afterwards in a wooden shoe which was under the sideboard. Two canes that were beside the mantelpiece, were laid on the said mantelpiece as if placed there by hand.

A meat chopper and a copper basin used for ladling water out of a pail, and attached to either end of the stove, were likewise thrown into the middle of the room. But the oddest part was that these two articles were fastened together, the twine which served to hang up the chopper being rolled round the handle of the basin. Finally, the flash divided, and zigzagged off, one part carrying off a piece of the oak jamb of the hall door, the other part piercing a hole above the stove in a mud wall. Through this it threw fragments of laths and mortar into a window eleven metres off, near which two people were sleeping.

This little dance, in which so many and various articles took part, does not lack piquancy!

This is how lightning joins in the National Fête of France!

On July 14, 1884, in the village of Tourettes (Vaucluse), lightning struck a house, carrying off a corner of the roof. It knocked off the lower part of the roof, and broke through a wall at least fifty centimetres thick.

In a press built half into the wall, and in which there were about fifteen bottles containing various kinds of liqueur, only one bottle of spirits was broken, and this was done in such a manner that no trace could ever be found either of the glass or the liquid.

From thence it sprang to the pictures hanging above the head of a little girl of five, who was sound asleep. Three pictures were torn from their frames, engravings and mirrors were ground to powder, but the child was not hurt. Then the electric current made an opening in the ceiling, which was about forty-five centimetres thick, broke a great many tiles as it left the house, but soon returned by way of the chimney, three parts of which it demolished. Then it explored the kitchen on the ground floor, where there were three men by a fire. One, standing up, was thrown violently against the opposite wall; another was hurled against the door; the third, seated, was raised from his chair to a height of at least fifty centimetres, and then dropped. To crown all, the spark tore away half the butt-end of a gun, and carried it into the next room, where there were eleven people who got off with nothing worse than the fright. Then going up the chimney, it exploded at a height of 1·50 metre, throwing bits of plaster and of the pothanger in all directions.

What frantic and almost childlike fury!

Yet somewhere else the very brother of this ray may caress the little head of a sleeping child, and not do it the slightest harm; may scoop a hole in the little cot, and then depart quietly without giving any further cause for talk. Or this same lightning, terrible and ungovernable at times, will snatch something out of a person's hand with so much dexterity, one might almost say delicacy, that one would hardly dare to reproach him with his lack of ceremony.

At Perpignan on August 31, 1895, lightning fell on the mountains of Nyer, near Olette. Twenty-five out of a flock of sheep were struck. The shepherd was enveloped by a flash, yet escaped, but the knife he was holding in his hand disappeared-and likewise his dog.

Another time it fell on a house at Beaumont (Puy-de-D?me), flashed through every part of it, blew up the stone staircase, and did considerable damage. It grazed a woman who was sitting with a cup in her hand, but she was not hurt, though the cup was rudely torn out of her hands.

In July, 1886, a labourer was in the act of mowing, when lightning coming on unawares, stole his scythe and threw it 10 metres away. The man was not in the least hurt.

The following example is truly amazing from this point of view.

A woman was busy milking a cow, when suddenly she saw a tongue of fire shoot into the stable and round it, pass between a cow and the wall at a place where there was not more than 30 or 35 centimetres of space, and finally go out of the door without leaving any marks, or hurting any living thing.

Very often lightning contents itself with making a frightful hubbub, and breaking any china or glass it may come across.

In July, 1886, thunder burst over a house at Langres. It was at breakfast-time. The fluid came down the chimney, which it swept thoroughly, came near the table, ran between the legs of an astounded guest, and then knocked a hole as big as a shilling in the neck of a bottle which was being filled at the pump. Then it took itself off to the courtyard, which it swept clean, and disappeared without hurting any of the witnesses of this strange phenomenon.

On August 3, 1898, two women were in the dining-room of their house at Confolens, when lightning broke a pane of glass in the window, and passing within a few metres of them, went through the kitchen, and disappeared through the wall, after having broken several cooking utensils and the mantelpiece into atoms.

At Port-de-Bouc, on August 21, 1900, lightning struck the custom house, went into the room of one of the officials, and cut clean in two a china vase, which was on the mantelpiece, without separating the pieces.

Several days later, on August 26, the mysterious fluid came to disturb the peaceful repast of two honest labourers. Having taken refuge from the storm in a hut, they had set out their provisions for breakfast. All at once the thunderstorm burst into the humble dining-room, snatched up the bread, cheese, etc., overturned the bottles and other articles, covered everything with straw, as if by a violent gust of wind. The labourers felt nothing but stupefaction.

Was not it a veritable farce?

In another place it bursts open a cupboard, throwing the door away, and damaging the crockery in the most systematic fashion: it breaks the first plate, leaves the second intact, cracks the next, spares the fourth, and so on to the bottom of the pile. Then its task finished, it becomes quite diminutive, like some little gnome out of a fairy story, and flees through the keyhole, but without making the key spring out of the lock.

On August 19, 1866, at Chaumont, lightning, having played havoc in a house in various ways, espied a pile of plates in a cupboard, china and earthenware plates being mixed, it broke all the china ones, leaving the others untouched.

Why this preference? The lightning does not explain. It is for us to find out.

On May 31, 1903, at Tillieu-sous-Aire (Eure), during a thunderstorm, a number of china plates were filled with a kind of sticky water. The earthenware plates beside them were not even wet. I received a little flask of this water sent me by the parish priest, but analysis revealed nothing unusual.

The following case gives a formal denial to the ancient prejudice which attributes a cabalistic influence to the number thirteen.

There were thirteen people in the dining-room of a house at Langonar while the thunder rumbled outside. Suddenly a flash of lightning struck a plate in the middle of the table, threw dishes, glasses, plates, knives, and forks in all directions-in a word, cleared the table, not forgetting the tablecloth.

None of the thirteen guests were touched.

It sometimes happens, indeed, that glasses or bottles are altogether or partly melted. Boyle gives a very curious instance of the kind.

Two large drinking glasses were side by side on a table. They were exactly alike. Lightning seemed to pass between them, yet neither was broken; one was slightly distorted, however, and the other so much bent by an instantaneous softening that it could hardly stand.

When firearms are struck by lightning, their injuries are often of the most varied kind. Sometimes the wood, particularly of the butt-end, is split, or broken to pieces, the metal parts torn out, or thrown right away.

On July 27, 1721, the meteor struck a sentry-box at Fort Nicolai, Breslau, and pierced the top to get at the sentry and his gun. The barrel was blackened; the butt-end broken and thrown to a distance. The shot had been discharged and pierced the roof of the sentry-box.

The man got off with a few scratches.

However, firearms when carried by men appear to attract the lightning. Soldiers are often enough struck when in the exercise of their calling, when they are carrying arms.

But, curiously enough, many cases are known in which lightning has struck a loaded gun, melting the bullet and part of the barrel, without setting fire to the powder.

Thus, at Prefling, lightning penetrated the room of a gamekeeper, yet none of the many firearms hanging up went off. The wall was damaged between each rifle. One was standing in a corner of the room; the wall was injured on a level with the lower end, and above it a hole was to be seen in the woodwork.

On June 1, 1761, near Nimburg, lightning burst into the house of a horse-keeper, where it struck a loaded carbine leaning against a wall on the ground floor. The muzzle was slightly melted by the spark, which ran along the barrel to the trigger, and which it soldered together in parts. There were five bullets melted and soldered together in the magazine and the wads much scorched. However, incredible as it may seem, there was no explosion.

In another case the lightning went the whole length of a rifle, both inside and outside, leaving a direct line of fusion, and yet, incredible though it may seem, no shot was fired though the fusion reached the powder.

These phenomena appear quite extraordinary, and altogether incompatible with the usual theory of the combustibleness of gunpowder. To what cause can the invulnerability of the explosive matter be due?

Doubtless to the quickness of the lightning, which does not leave the powder time enough to ignite.

Powder magazines are frequently struck by lightning, and this subject is one of very great interest; they are not always blown up, in spite of the vast quantities of explosive materials which they contain.

Here are some examples which go to prove this statement:-

On November 5, 1755, lightning fell near Rouen on the Maromme powder magazine, and split one of the beams of the roof. Two barrels of powder were reduced to atoms without exploding. The magazine contained eight hundred of these barrels.

Can it be that man's thunder can repulse that of Jupiter?

Not always, as numerous examples prove the contrary. The following observations are extracted from a collection of similar facts:-

Lightning struck the tower of St. Nazaire, Brecia, on August 18, 1769. It stood above an underground magazine containing a million kilogrammes of powder belonging to the Republic of Venice. The whole edifice was blown up, the stones falling in showers. Part of the town was thrown down; three thousand people perishing.

At four o'clock in the afternoon of October 6, 1856, lightning penetrated the vaults of the church of St Jean, at Rhodes, setting fire to an enormous quantity of powder. Four or five thousand people lost their lives in the catastrophe.

The power of lightning is immeasurable. Well, it sometimes enjoys itself after the following manner:-

In 1899 it lit a candle which had just been put out. The person who held it was not struck, but the shock sent him to sleep for four days; then he awoke, only to go mad, and then slept for seven consecutive days.

At Harbourg it put out all the lights at a ball; the room was plunged in darkness, and filled with thick and fetid vapour.

Many a time, too, has a fire, burning brightly in a grate, been suddenly extinguished by lightning; and the same thing has happened with pottery and tile-making furnaces. As a rule, it is extremely difficult to re-light candles or fires thus extinguished. In some instances it takes on itself to light the gas.

On August 3, 1876, near the Observatory in Paris, Rue Leclerc, towards the corner of the Boulevard Saint Jacques, a gas jet was lit by lightning. The latter was twenty centimetres from a long gutter, and was in the gap, so to speak, of an electric circuit formed by it and the damp wall communicating with the ground. A violent explosion took place at the moment the gas caught alight, the gas meter, on the wall two metres above it, was dislodged, when a second explosion was heard. The thunderclap was truly terrific, and immediately followed the lightning flash. The chronometer in the meteorological bureau in the Observatory was stopped suddenly. The keeper of the square of the Luxembourg saw a ball of red fire explode with great violence, and scatter in all directions. The plate belonging to the Pères was, according to M. de Fonvielle, broken to a thousand pieces, and the outer part of an iron bar was volatilized. There were no deaths or injuries to record, although several people were thrown down by the shock.

Sometimes great disasters are indirectly caused by lightning. Thus in July, 1903, it set fire to an old house at Muda, Paluzzo. Under other circumstances, the accident might have been insignificant. But, fanned by a violent wind, the flames increased, and, approaching nearer and nearer, burned a hundred houses, or in other words, the whole village.

A similar catastrophe took place at the village of Ochres, in Dauphine, on August 27, 1900. Lightning set fire to twenty thatched cottages, which, out of thirty-two composing the village, were in ashes within less than an hour. Three persons were burnt alive, and four others seriously injured.

On August 25, 1881, lightning struck the village of Saint Innocent, at three o'clock in the morning. Seven houses were totally burnt, and three women perished in the flames.

A fire caused by lightning burst out on June 24, 1872, at Perrigny, near Pontailler (C?te d'Or). Seventeen houses were burnt, and seventy-eight people found themselves homeless. Sometimes these disasters attain terrifying proportions.

During an awful thunderstorm, the electric spark set fire to eighteen parishes in Belgium; ruin spread over an area of 160 kilometres.

But could anything be more dreadful than the fate of certain ships that have been struck by lightning?

Here is the case of one which was literally cut in two.

On August 3, 1862, the ship Moses, on her passage from Ibraila to Queenstown, was overtaken in sight of Malta by a violent thunderstorm. Towards midnight lightning struck the mainmast, and then downwards along it to the hold, cutting the vessel in two. She filled immediately. Crew and passengers were lost. Captain Pearson was on the bridge, and had just time to catch a floating spar, which supported him during seventeen hours. The ship sank in three minutes.

At the commencement of last century, the ship Royal Charlotte being in Diamond Harbour, on the Hoogley, was struck by lightning and blown into a thousand pieces, through the explosion of her powder magazine. The report was heard a great distance off, and the shock was felt for miles around.

The form and position of the masts exposes them particularly to the attacks of the dread meteor. Several examples are known of sailors being struck by the electric current while aloft in the rigging, and even being thrown from there into the sea.

On August 26, 1900, the steamer Numidie, sailing from Bone, was struck by lightning. The fluid fell on the mizzen-mast, and went down the standing jib, to which the second officer was clinging. The unfortunate man had had both his hands paralyzed and fallen; but if he had fallen on the outside of the draille, death would have been inevitable.

The Rodney was under weigh before Syracuse when it was struck. This was on December 7, 1838. The top-gallant-mast went first; it weighed eight hundred pounds, and such was the violence of the stroke that it was instantly reduced to shavings, which hung the whole length of the vessel, like rubbish in a carpenter's shop. The topmast was very much damaged and shattered here and there. As for the mainmast, with its ironwork weighing more than a ton, it was wrecked for a length of some seventeen metres.

At times the masts are split from top to bottom, broken or cut transversely in fragments, and flung to a distance. Sometimes they are planed, like the beams and trees of which we have already spoken.

The Blake was struck by lightning in 1812. The top-gallant-mast was in green pine, which was split into long fibres in every direction, like branches of a tree.

It is not unusual for lightning to creep into the heart of a mast and do it all kinds of injuries, without in any way hurting the outside; in a word, there may be single or double furrows, longitudinal or zigzag, sometimes curved, and of varying depth. Sometimes also, the electric current, far more powerful than the blast of the wind, seizes the rigging and carries it off. This phenomenon was observed on the Clenker, December 31, 1828; the topmast and sails were torn off and thrown into the water. Neither are the sails spared by the terrible meteor; they are torn, riddled with holes, or set on fire. But as a rule the yards are spared.

One of the most frightful effects of thunder on ships is fire, which it drives from one part of the vessel to another. Under ordinary circumstances it is usually local, and easily extinguished; but when it seizes on various parts of the ship at once, as when struck by lightning, then destruction becomes inevitable.

In 1793 the King George from Bombay was sailing up the river at Canton, when an electric spark, followed by a violent clap of thunder, grazed the mizzen-mast, and disappeared in the hold, after killing seven men. Seven hours later it was discovered with consternation that the hold, full of an inflammable cargo, was on fire. It spread rapidly over the whole ship, which it burned to the water's edge.

The ship Bayfield from Liverpool was struck by lightning November 25, 1845. Instantly the deck was seen covered with globes of fire and large sparks, which set fire to the vessel. As it threatened the powder-magazine, the captain decided to abandon the ship. A rush was made for the boats, but as only thirty pounds of bread could be saved, many perished of hunger and thirst.

Often, indeed, the explosion of the powder-magazine makes the catastrophe even more terrible. Thus, in 1798, the English vessel the Resistance, was blown up in the Straits of Malacca. Only two or three of the crew were saved.

But lightning plays more tricks with the compass than with anything else when it visits a ship. The vibrating, quivering, magnetic needle is often paralyzed by the electric current; sometimes its poles are reversed, or the points, disturbed by the passage of the spark, deviate, and no longer responding to the magnetic pole, mislead and move hither and thither.

Sometimes they even lose all their magnetic properties.

These changes in the compass often lead to disastrous consequences. Many cases are known of ships being steered to destruction through the deviation of the compass. Arago tells of a Genoese ship which, about the year 1808, sailing for Marseilles, was struck a little way off Algiers. The needles of the compasses all made half a revolution, although the instruments did not appear to be injured, and the vessel was wrecked on the coast when the pilot believed he could round the cape to the north. This may account for the total disappearance of certain ships.

Some ships, like certain individuals and certain trees, appear in particular to attract the electric fluid. We have many records of vessels struck several times in the course of a single electric storm. Here are a few:-

On August 1, 1750, the Malacca was struck repeatedly.

In 1848, the Competitor was struck twice within an hour.

At the beginning of December, 1770, between Mahon and Malta, the ship of a Russian admiral was struck three times in a single night.

On January 5, 1830, in the Straits of Corfu, the Madagascar received five destructive discharges in two hours.

We could add many others to this list. But enough. And yet we have not said the last word on the subject. We have to discuss the interchange of sympathetic currents, and those which are the reverse, taking place between the electricity of the skies and that of the telegraph.

Lightning often comes incognito to visit the earth's surface, or even the depths of the ocean. These little excursions to our terrestrial dominions usually pass unperceived; however, in certain cases the telegraph wires commit the indiscretion of revealing them.

On the other hand, we know that the wires entrusted with carrying our thoughts round the world, are almost inconceivably sensitive. Without being conscious of the fact, they are in correspondence with the sun, 149 millions of kilometres away, and any agitation on the surface of this luminary may cause them indescribable agitation, as we witnessed at the close of the year 1903.

During the formidable magnetic tempest of the 31st October, telegraphic and telephonic communication were interrupted in many parts of the world. In fact, the phenomenon was observed all over the surface of the globe. From nine o'clock in the morning, till four in the afternoon, the old world and the new were strangers to one another. Not a word nor a thought crossed the ocean; the submarine cables were paralyzed on account of solar disturbances. In France, communication between the principal towns and the frontiers was interrupted. During this time the sun was in a condition of violent agitation, and its surface vibrated with intense heat. In such times the subtle fluid profits by the confusion to glide noiselessly along the paths which are open to it. But he does not always wait for these favourable opportunities.

Let a thunder-cloud pass over the telegraph wires, either noiselessly or hurling petards in all directions, the line will be affected. The fluid imprisoned in the sky will act by induction on the electricity of the wires which will result in the vibration of the latter, accompanied sometimes by a flash of lightning. These phenomena may cause grave accidents to the telegraph clerks, unless they are on their guard against the treachery of the lightning. These mute discharges happen frequently, but the spark strikes the telegraph wires often, too, as well as the apparatus in the office. All sorts of accidents result from these repeated attacks.

We know, for instance, how the birds fall victims to the lightning when they alight on the telegraph wires after a thunderstorm; they are often found dead hanging by their claws.

But the fluid acts on man also, through the medium of the wires.

Thus, on April 13, 1863, a telegraph clerk was engaged with several other employees repairing some telegraph wires in the station at Pontarlier, when all at once they felt, at the knee-joints more particularly, a violent shock which made them bend their legs as if they had been struck with a stick; one of them was even thrown down. No doubt the fluid reached the wires, which in those remote parts was in charge of the clerks.

On September 8, 1848, during a violent thunderstorm, two telegraph poles were thrown down at Zara in Dalmatia. Two hours later, as they were being set up again, a couple of artillerymen, having seized the wire, felt slight electric shocks, then suddenly found themselves flat on the ground. Both had their hands burnt; one indeed, gave no sign of life; the other, in trying to raise himself up, fell back as soon as his arm came in contact with that of one of his comrades, who ran to his assistance on hearing him cry for help. The latter thrown down in turn, felt his nerves tingle, and giddiness seize him, with singing in his ears. When his arm was uncovered, there was a superficial burn just on the spot where he had been touched.

On May 9, 1867, lightning fell on the road from Bastogne to Houffalize (Luxembourg), attracted by the telegraph wire, which it destroyed for about a kilometre. At a certain part, and over a length of about twenty metres, the wire was cut in small pieces, three or four centimetres long, which were scattered over the ground, and were as black and as fragile as charcoal. The poles which supported them, and several poplars planted on the same side of the road, were more or less damaged.

It has been observed that trees planted on the same side as a telegraph line were sometimes blasted on a level with the wires. It is the same with houses near the copper threads along which human thoughts take wing. Thus, at Chateauneuf-Martignes, on August 25, 1900, lightning destroyed the telegraph poles on the outskirts of the railway-station. A severe shock, like an electrical discharge, was felt at the same moment by two people who were in bed, not far from where the wire was fixed in the wall of the house, which was a very low one. The same phenomenon had been felt there already.

In the railway-stations, as well as in the telegraph and telephone offices, curious results of the spark passing at a certain distance, or even in the immediate neighbourhood, are sometimes observed.

On May 17, 1852, towards five o'clock, the sky looking overcast, the station-master at Havre warned his colleague at Beuzeville that it would be well to put his apparatus in connection with the ground. Beuzeville is twenty-five kilometres away from Havre, and at the former station the weather then did not look at all threatening. But clouds soon piled up, driven before a violent wind. Suddenly three awful peals of thunder succeeded each other in quick succession. With the last, lightning struck a farm about a kilometre from the station, and at the same moment a globe of fire of a reddish brown, and apparently about the size of a small bomb-shell, rose as if out of a clump of trees. It glided through the air like an aerolite, and leaving behind it a train of light. At a hundred metres or so from the station, it alighted like a bird on the telegraph wires, then disappeared with the rapidity of lightning, leaving no trace of its passage, either on the wires or the station. But at Beuzeville several interesting phenomena were observed. Firstly, the needles turned rapidly, with a grating noise like that of a turnspit suddenly running down, or like a grindstone sharpening iron, which emits sparks. A great number, indeed, flew out of the apparatus. One of the needles, that on the Rouen side, went out of order; all the screws on that part of the instrument were unscrewed, and on the copper dial near the axis of the needle, there was a hole through which one could pass a grain of corn.

The instruments at Havre were unaffected. The needle remained as usual, also the dial, screws, and so on.

One of our correspondents has sent me the following very interesting communication:-

"On June 26, 1901, having rung up at the central telephone-office at St. Pierre, Martinique, a harsh noise was heard, which was almost immediately succeeded by the appearance of a ball of fire, having an apparent diameter of twenty centimetres, and the brilliancy of an electric light of twenty candle power. This voluminous globe followed the telephone wire towards the instrument. Arrived near the receiver, it burst with a terrific explosion. The witness of this phenomenon felt a severe shock, and dizziness. Recovered from his stupefaction, he noted the following facts: the telephone apparatus was completely burnt, the relay of Morse's installation was slightly damaged. The electrical tension must have been enormous, for the wire of the bobbins was, to a great extent, melted."

This latter effect, however, occurs very frequently. Not only does the lightning melt and break the telegraph wires, but it injures the poles which support them.

These are sometimes broken, split, thrown down, burst, or splintered, sometimes into threads or shavings. Poles which have been blasted are often to be seen alternating with others which are uninjured. Thus, on the line from Philadelphia to New York, during a great storm, every alternate pole up to eight was broken or thrown down; the odd numbers were uninjured. We have mentioned a similar case already.

There are several accounts, too, of lightning in pursuit of trains.

On June 1, 1903, travellers by train from Carhaix to Morlaix, between Sorignac and Le Cloistre, saw lightning follow the train over a course of six kilometres, breaking or splitting several telegraph poles.

This feat has been observed more than once. The train is escorted by lightning flashes which succeed each other almost without cessation, and the travellers seem to be whirled through an ocean of flame.

Lightning rarely strikes the carriages; only on one occasion did it actually wreck one, by breaking a wheel. The mutilated coach, however, continued to hobble along until the injury was discovered.

Generally the fluid is content to wander about the rails, to the great terror of the passengers who witness this display of rather alarming magic. It spreads itself over masses of iron, as for instance the roofs and balconies in Paris, without striking any particular point.

The danger would be greater to a cyclist on a road. In the suburbs of Brussels, on July 2, 1904, a cyclist named Jean Ollivier, aged twenty-one years, was riding during a violent storm, when suddenly he was struck and killed on the spot.

We shall end this description of the whims and caprices of lightning by a notice of the blasting of a German military balloon. It happened in June, 1902. The aeronaut, whose car was steered by a sub-lieutenant, was held captive, and soared at a height of about 500 metres above the fortifications at Lechfeld, near Ingolstadt. All at once the aerial skiff was touched by an electric spark, caught fire, and began to descend, slowly at first, then swiftly. The aeronaut had the good luck to get off with a broken thigh. The five assistants, who worked the windlass and the telephone, also received shocks transmitted through the metal wires of the cable. They fell unconscious, but were quickly restored. This phenomenon, which is excessively rare, fittingly closes this odd collection of stories, fantastically illustrated by lightning.

A communication from Berlin also mentions that the captive balloon of the battalion of aeronauts was struck by lightning on the exercise ground at Senne. Two under-officers and a private were wounded by the explosion.

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