' 
 

DESCRIPTION 
 
 A NEW LIGHTNING CONDUCTOR; 
 
 OBSERVATIONS ON THE PHENOMENA 
 
 THE THUNDER STORM. 
 
 " Horrida tempestas coelum contraxit et imbres." 
 
 " Lightnings! The dread arrows of the clouds; 
 The signs and wonders of the firmament." 
 
 COLERIDGE. 
 
 BY JOHN MURRAY, F.S.A., F.L.S., F.H.S., F48.S., & c . 
 II 
 
 LONDON : 
 S. HIGH LEY, FLEET-STREET. 
 
 I 8 3 3 . 
 

 Printed by William Parke, WolTevhampton. 
 
TO 
 
 THE RIGHT HONORABLE 
 
 GEORGE, VISCOUNT MORPETH, M.P., 
 
 THE FOLLOWING PAGES 
 
 MOST RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED. 
 
 Hull, 10th July, 1833. 
 
 M372421 
 

ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 The following pages are not intended to interfere 
 with my " Treatise on Atmospherical Electricity," but 
 to embrace an abstract question insulated from its 
 general and more varied range, and though confined 
 to the practical application of an independent branch, 
 may not be considered an uninteresting supplement 
 to it. With this view, facts brought forward in the 
 one, have been withheld from the other. 
 
 I have recorded some of the most curious effects 
 of lightning in recent times, and described a new 
 lightning conductor, constructed on principles esta- 
 blished on the practical deductions of electrical 
 science. It is the ONLY CONDUCTOR the safety 
 of which has, so far as I am acquainted with the 
 annals of science, received a positive and a pal- 
 pable guarantee. An inference in which I am 
 warranted by the remarkable phenomena of the 
 thunder-storm at Huddersfield, on the 13th of 
 June, 1831. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Preliminary observations Electricity artificially excited Lightning, 
 its various features and intensity Phenomena of the heavens on the advent 
 of a storm, and at its close. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The thunder-storm in both hemispheres Accompaniments of the storm ; 
 hailstones Effects of lightning Fulgurites. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Conductors of lightning Condensation of moisture by trees, &c. 
 Endemic, &c. phenomena Paragreles Personal security in the storm 
 The oak Aranea aeronautica Identity of electricity and magnetism 
 Geography and electricity of colour. 
 
LIST OF WORKS 
 
 BY JOHN MURRAY, F.S.A. F.L.S. F.H.S. F.G.S,, 
 
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 REMARKS ON THE CULTIVATION OF THE SILK-WORM. 
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 DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNT OF A NEW SHOWER BATH, 
 
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 RESEARCHES IN NATURAL HISTORY. 
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 XII. 
 
 PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS ON FLAME, &c. 
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 XVI. 
 
 THE DESCRIPTION OF A NEW LIGHTNING CONDUCTOR. 
 In 8vo. with Plate price 3s. 6rf. 
 
OBSERVATIONS, 
 
 &c. &c. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 Preliminary Observations Electricity artificially excited Lightning, its various Fep- 
 tures and Intensity Phenomena of the Heavens on the Advent of the Storm, and on its 
 Close. 
 
 AMONG the various natural phenomena which mote im- 
 mediately belong to the physical condition of the globe, none are 
 more sublime than the terrors of the sky in the thunder-storm. 
 The echoes that sleep among the mountains roused from their 
 slumbers, as soon as the " thunders utter their voices," perpetuate 
 the peal among the hills and vallies, while the sound " waxes 
 louder and louder," from its approach; but this dread note only 
 proclaims to the ear of the philosopher, that the danger is past, 
 though the announcement is terrible ; and by the comparative ra- 
 pidity of the succession of sounds, he can compute the distance, and 
 the magnitude of danger. Composed amidst the war of contend- 
 ing elements, and the atmospherical battle scene, having studied 
 the laws which direct the whirlwind, or impel the storm, and pro- 
 vided the shield of safety secured by those laws, he can command 
 the obedience of this minister of destruction, and controul its 
 power. Secure under their safeguard, he can watch the descent of 
 
the " forked bolt," and guide it to the ground, where it is at 
 length quietly inurned. 
 
 The animal frame is by no means insensible to electric changes 
 in tti atmosphere. Some affected with weak sight, possess a pre- 
 monitory feeling in the eyes, so as to predict a thunder storm a 
 considerable time before its approach, and oculists on this account 
 are careful not to perform any operation at such a period. In- 
 dividuals are seized with head ache, &c. before the storm expends 
 itself. When I retire to rest, electric flashes, sometimes intense 
 and powerful, supervene on shutting the eyes, and pressing the 
 ball of the eye by the cartilaginous ring of the cilia, or eye-lash ; 
 such facts shew how dependant the healthy functions of ani- 
 mal life are on the nice adjustment of atmospherical electricity. 
 The inferior creation is also sensitive ; while some animals cower 
 and tremble, others utter a cry of fright and alarm, or give une- 
 quivocal indications that they are not unconcerned instinct being 
 the teacher, where intellect is denied. The chamois of the Alps,* 
 feeding sometimes above the storm plane, trembles for its safety 
 cock pheasants crow at the close of each peal the crocodile roars, 
 and snakes and frogs hiss and croak. Cold blooded animals, in- 
 deed, such as the frog, medicinal leech, and earthworm, are very 
 sensible electroscopes. A correspondent in the Magazine of Na- 
 tural History mentions his having received electrie shocks from the 
 larva of the cerura vinula or puss-moth found on a young poplar. 
 The caterpillar evinced symptoms of irritation, contracting its body, 
 and by degrees elevated and extended its bifurcated tail. " There 
 were slowly protruded from out of the points bright red filaments, and 
 
 * Marchietti, a celebrated chamois hunter, has observed that herds of 
 chamois among the higher Alps, suddenly manifest great restlessness before 
 the thunder-storm, however fine the weather may have previously been. The 
 missel-thrush, called the " storm-cock," sings most and loudest previous to 
 the approach of the thunder-storm, and it has been noticed by an observer, 
 perched on a lofty elm, to sing without intermission during the continuance 
 of the storm, while a cuckoo from an adjoining hedge repeated its note at 
 short intervals ; and at the distance of about 100 yards, a lark sprang up into 
 the air and warbled its song in despite of the peals of thunder, the torrents 
 of rain which fell at the same time, and the flashes of lightning which illu- 
 minated the sky. The latter I have indeed seen on the wing during the pre- 
 valence of the storm. 
 
3 
 
 irregularly bent to one side." Our observer felt a sudden tingle 
 along 1 his arms, and shortly after another shock, which forced him 
 to cast the twig with the caterpillar to the ground. 
 
 When the lightning darts from heaven to earth, no structure, 
 whether of nature or of art, can withstand the shock. The Alpine 
 aiguilles " pinnacled in cold sublimity," the tower, the monument, 
 " the gnarled and unweageable oak ;" all submit to its poten- 
 cy, tumble to the ground, or are shivered to fragments ; and pros- 
 trate in the dust, are the symbols and trophies of its subduing 
 power. 
 
 This sublime feature of lightning, is, however, only one mani- 
 festation of its character, it is subtile in a softer sense. It steals 
 through all the avenues and recesses of nature, pervades insensibly 
 every department of the physical world, and is not less important 
 in the stillness of its operations, than when it discharges its me- 
 teoric rockets amidst the lofty regions of the sky, and casts down 
 showers of stones from the clouds. The animal, vegetable, and 
 mineral kingdoms are controlled or modified by its influence, and 
 are equally affected by its mysterious agency, 
 
 It may supply us with much matter of interesting thought, 
 when we reflect that a^ power so dreadful, and so subtile in its ways 
 and workings, should ever have been subjugated by intellect and 
 reason, or become a captive of their spell ; and, from being a 
 minister of destruction, be converted into the messenger of good. 
 Apparently capricious in its evolutions, it certainly for some time 
 eluded the mighty grasp of mind, and remained untamed while it 
 seemed untameable. At length FRANKLIN arose, and like Prome- 
 theus on the summit of Elborus, 
 
 ' Eripuit coolo fulmen," 
 
 and taught the during enterprise toman; an experiment as bold 
 as any that had ever entered the speculations of human philoso- 
 phy. For the first time was the important truth manifest, that 
 the Creator of the universe had certainly, by simple yet effective 
 laws, " divided a way for the lightning of thunder;" and in this 
 beautiful physical demonstration of the problem, supplied a new 
 source of admiration and delight. 
 
 Of the identity of electricity, artificially excited, and that of 
 the thunder-storm, there can be no rational doubt. The only 
 difference between the two consists in tho vast accumulation of the 
 
latter, but almost all the phenomena and effects of lightning may 
 be imitated by electrical experiments ; and such as cannot be so ex- 
 emplified, may depend on the want of apparatus sufficiently 
 powerful to elicit the requisite supply, or to treasure it up. It 
 was not, however, until Dr. Franklin had raised his kite, and the 
 experiments were made in the garden at Marly, that the identity of the 
 two was established on a basis that the most subtile scepticism 
 could never move. Before this epocha in its history, our conclu- 
 sions deduced from strong and striking analogies, as to their iden- 
 tity, could be received only as suppositions. On the 8th October, 
 1830, a thunder-storm broke over Mount Atlas. The entire hori- 
 zon seemed on fire, and the thunder continued to roll without any 
 sensible intermission. A strong white light was seen to gleam on 
 the summits of the poles of the pavilions in Algiers : the pheeno- 
 menon continued for half an hour. The officers who paraded the 
 ramparts felt their hair bristle up, and stand on end, and in some 
 cases stars of electric light studded the extremity of each hair : 
 when their hands were held up, similar lights appeared on the ends 
 of their fingers. Those exposed to this influence were nervous, 
 and experienced a sensation of great lassitude. A great part of 
 the experiments I am in the habit of making by means of the 
 electrical machine, I have successfully repeated with the electrical 
 kite ; nor was I ever disappointed in my expectations in any sea- 
 son or period of the day, when the weather was sufficiently dry. 
 Indeed, whenever there appeared indications of a thunder-storm, 1 
 laid aside my experiments, being instructed from some daring 
 attempts, that under such circumstances, there is considerable 
 danger. On one occasion, I charged, by means of the electric 
 kite, in a few seconds, what communicated, by means of a Leyden 
 jar, a powerful shock to nearly 100 persons. Any argument to 
 prove that these are one and the same, is altogether uncalled for, 
 and as the electrical machine simply collects electricity, certainly 
 does not create it, it must not be forgotten that in our common 
 experiments, by means of electrical apparatus, the phaenomena are 
 neither more nor less than those of lightning on a miniature 
 scale it is true, but the fact is not the less certain, that in these 
 very experiments, lightning is our play- thing; this being the case, 
 the study of the laws of electricity enable us to account 
 for the phenomena of lightning- on its more magnificent 
 
scale in nature ; and by the imposition of those laws we gain all 
 the advantage secured by a subjugation of its power, and are ena- 
 bled to direct its influence into the channel of good. The indi- 
 vidual not conversant with electricity, is apt to fancy 5 that some 
 mysterious agency is connected with the glass cylinder or plate, 
 or the paraphernalia of silk, cushions and amalgam, or the auxili- 
 aries of brass rods and balls, and glass jars lined with tinfoil ; but 
 the practical electrician knows better, and is aware that they only 
 afford him facilities for the accumulation of electricity, and its 
 direction and application. The intervention of glass is not neces- 
 sary ; other means may be substituted with as powerful an effect. 
 Not to specify the numerous and diversified media for this end, 
 I may merely state, that I have seen some remarkable and power- 
 ful electrical phenomena in the manufactory of the clothier. 
 When the cloth passed rapidly between the heated cylinders, the 
 flashes of electricity ramified into luminous branches, and on the 
 approach of the hand, darted to it from a distance of twelve 
 inches, and rivalled the largest and most powerful plate machine 
 with which I ever made experiments. Sir Frederick Henniker 
 mentions the fact of a common white linen sheet being shaken on 
 the surface of the desert having emitted flashes of electric fire. 
 
 That called in common parlance, lightning, is presented 
 to us under diversified aspects, and in its effects is more or 
 less intense. What is usually called silent, or sheet lightning, 
 is altogether harmless, and appears to be discharged from one 
 cloud to another. The phsenomena as seen on the verge of the 
 distant horizon, peculiarly characterise this description of lightning : 
 the effect of those curious flashes among the snows and glaciers, 
 and rocky pinnacles of the Alps, is at once beautiful and sublime, 
 though the use here of the latter term rather impeaches Mr. 
 Burke's notion. The Alps, indeed, sometimes present pheno- 
 mena of an electric character, calculated to excite interest and 
 admiration. In a letter dated from Bruneck, Tyrol, 14th No- 
 vember, 1831, we have the following description of a beautiful 
 phenomenon : " Soon after six o'clock, A.M. a broad stream of 
 light suddenly descended from the centre of the firmament, 
 nearly down to the ground, and was then drawn gradually up 
 again to the middle of the sky, whence for several seconds it 
 stretched itself out towards the N. in a long ray of light, which 
 
6 
 
 first appeared in a straight, and then changed to a wavy line ; 
 after this, it gathered itself into a luminous orb, resembling a 
 white cloud, and remained stationary in the centre of the 
 firmament for more than a quarter of an hour, when it dis- 
 appeared with the break of day. The appearance was accom- 
 panied by so vivid a degree of illumination, that the smallest 
 pebble in the road was readily distinguishable, and those who 
 were abroad at the time were completely panic struck. The 
 sky, instead of being muddy with vapour, as is customary at this 
 season, and at this time in the morning, was clear and cloudless, 
 and the air remarkably serene and tranquil. Between five and 
 six o'clock, however, an unusual number of falling stars were 
 observed in various parts of the heavens."* 
 
 It is of course only such lightning as darts from the sky on 
 terrestrial objects that is the proper subject of fear or alarm, and 
 this seems to be presented under three more immediately distinct 
 forms ; a sudden flash and general illumination, extremely vivid 
 and overpowering. In this there is no distinct form or definite 
 appearance ; sometimes the entire atmosphere seems wrapped 
 in a pale bluish and dilute light, and objects put on the same 
 aspect as when illuminated by the burning of sulphur in oxygen ; 
 sometimes the flashes appear to be almost continuous, and kept 
 up by an incessant support of the source of their production. 
 The flashes are generally sudden, bright, and dazzling; and are 
 succeeded by a peal of thunder at intervals, more or less prolonged, 
 and violent rain usually fails. Sometimes the lightning is purplish, 
 and at other times reddish ; the colours being either dependant 
 on the comparative density of the atmosphere, or extraneous 
 matter with which the electric power may be charged ; just as 
 the electricity produced by the electrical machine varies its colour 
 and intensity in condensed or rarified air hydrogen or carbonic 
 acid gas ; or, when the electric spark passes through the vapour of 
 ether, ramifies over silver paper ; or the electric explosion is 
 passed through links of steel, or over balls of ivory, boxwood, 
 or charcoal. The colour, therefore, of the lightning, supplies u 
 with a test to determine its comparative destructive power. 
 
 * Athenaru 
 
The next feature of lightning is that of a zig-zag or arrowy 
 form, when it quivers in the dark back ground, on the sable 
 thunder cloud in the distant perspective. In heathen mythology, 
 this phsenomenon formed the symbol of Jupiter, and the eagle 
 grasping the thunder-bolt pre-figured its power arid vengeance. 
 Here the lightning is presented under a distinct and geometric 
 form, with angles more or less acute as it darts from heaven to 
 earth. This presupposes a considerable accumulation of electric 
 power, necessary to overcome the resistance interposed by the 
 atmosphere, which resistance is demonstrated by the arrowy line. 
 This denned line of light proves a concentration of energy, as 
 in the preceding variety of lightning, it evinced a diffusion and 
 consequent attenuation. Sometimes this may be seen to strike a 
 terrestrial object in the distance, and is always formidable. 
 
 There is still another and more destructive variety of these 
 electric phenomena, and by far the most alarming of them all ; 
 this is when it assumes the appearance of fire-balls.* The motion 
 of these is easily perceptible, and wherever they fall, they explode, 
 and do much damage : sometimes they run along the ground, 
 or rest momentarily on something which arrests their progress, 
 and then burst like a shell. Sometimes, also, the separated 
 fragments of the explosion individually burst, and extend the 
 mischief. It is especially worthy of remark that the Hebrew 
 Legislator, whose veracity as a historian is only equalled by the 
 singular accuracy with which he describes scientific phenomena, 
 expressly names a phsenomenon of this kind as characteristic of 
 one of the plagues entailed on the Land of the Pharaohs. " The 
 LORD sent thunder and hail, and the fire ran along upon the 
 ground ; and the LORD rained hail upon the Land of Egypt ; so 
 there was hail, and fire mingled with hail."f On Friday after- 
 
 * In Abercromby Place, Edinburgh, a fire-ball last season seems to 
 have descended a chimney and produced a considerable explosion, though 
 providentially without doing injury to any one. This is the second visi- 
 tation of the same kind, in the same place : proof sufficient of the liability 
 of those spots which have been once struck, and should impart an impressive 
 hint to provide for their future security. 
 
 f Exodus, chap. ix. v. 23. 
 
8 
 
 noon, July 30, 1830, a fire-ball during a thunder-storm, darted 
 into the river Eoss, at York, opposite the ground occupied by 
 
 Mr. P , in Walmgate, with such tremendous force as to raise 
 
 the water considerably above its level, and it continued to bubble 
 up, as if boiling, for nearly 20 minutes. The following detail from 
 the "Maidstone Journal," a few years ago, seems descriptive of 
 this peculiar form of lightning. "On Friday, about half-past one, 
 P.M. the Dart, then passing through the water at about 13 miles an 
 hour, and in the five-fathom channel, opposite Whitstable, running 
 for Margate, was overtaken by a stiff squall from the west with heavy 
 rain. Several claps of thunder had been previously heard. 
 After the squall had lasted a few minutes and curled up the 
 sea in a curious manner in patches, the denser part of the 
 cloud seemed to settle down towards the vessel. Whilst 
 noticing its proximity, first a very faint illuminating light waved 
 over the starboard paddle-box, and immediately an appalling flash 
 and burst took place about nine or ten feet from the deck, directly 
 between, although a little higher than, the paddle-boxes. The 
 noise of the explosion somewhat resembled the discharge of a 
 large howitzer when close to the hearer, having in addition a 
 hissing noise, like a Congreve rocket, yet of -shorter duration. 
 The form and appearance of the fire was that of a flash from a 
 12 or 14 inch mortar, as seen at night, accompanied by some 30 or 
 40 red sparks like those from red hot iron when struck on the 
 anvil. The flash, spark, and hissing, seemed to go over the 
 larboard paddle-box towards the sea. One of the seamen who 
 was on the look-out near the head of the vessel was thrown 
 forward, bent, as he expressed it, to the deck. Two others 
 near him received violent blows on the legs : luckily the rain 
 had driven all the passengers from the fore-deck, either into the 
 cabins or under the awning of the aft-deck." Last year, also, 
 a small luminous electric ball of a similar kind, fell on the rusty 
 iron conductor attached to one of the church spires of Wakefield. 
 My informant tells me it occupied nearly three minutes in com- 
 pleting its descent, a phenomenon in perfect conformity with 
 these extraordinary electric configurations. In the circular flash 
 of lightning the sound from every point, arriving at the ear almost 
 simultaneously, will produce a stunning noise or crash, sometimes 
 a triple explosion is heard. In the rectilinear flash which may 
 
pervade a space, say of four miles in length, the sound proceeding 
 from the nearest point will be the loudest, declining in intensity 
 as the points recede in the distance, occuping altogether a period 
 of 20 seconds. If the flash be ziz-zag, or composed of broken 
 lines (the most common appearance it assumes), or if the principal 
 trunk ramifies into branches and each becomes a separate source 
 of thunder, we have all the varieties of that fearful and solemn 
 sound accounted for. 
 
 The various modifications of the clouds depend, there can be 
 no doubt whatever, on electrical principles, and their rise and fall 
 in the atmosphere are determined by the attractive influence of 
 the earth ; and though the unseen mercurial thretfds of Linus 
 are sufficiently fanciful and hypothetical, this invisible com- 
 munication between the earth and the heavens may be said to 
 be the tackling by which the clouds fire depressed or raised to 
 lower or higher stations in the atmosphere. I shall elsewhere 
 describe, from Spix and Martius, the phaenomena of the hea- 
 vens which usher in, as its pioneer, the conflict of the aerial 
 elements, and may therefore confine myself entirely to the 
 appearances which portend the storm in these latitudes. 
 
 The commencement of the thunder-storm is indicated by the 
 sudden accumulation in the distant horizon of a dark and ominous 
 cloud formed by the coalescence of the cumuli which are observed 
 to float through the regions of the atmosphere ; or, the cloud 
 swells in magnitude on a horizontal plane without any visible cause, 
 though the floating cumuli are seen to fall into, and be swallowed 
 up in its vortex. The cloud whose structure has thus been reared 
 in the air, rests on a base perfectly linear and parallel with the 
 plane of the horizon. This base is sable and sullen, and the su- 
 perstructure is composed of a series of arched clouds, tolerably 
 well defined in their general outline, and of different degrees of 
 shade. Sometimes there are two or more of these linear and sable 
 planes. The whole remains for a time stationary, the winds are 
 hushed into an unnatural calm, and the temperature of the atmos- 
 phere undergoes a remarkable change. In the meantime the 
 cloud leaves its station in the sky, and is put in motion. The 
 rains fall, and the lightnings flash, and the winds sometimes 
 mingle their voices with the roar of the thunder. Again the 
 
 c 
 
ro 
 
 plane of the storm-cloud becomes ragged and uneven ; the weH 
 defined line no longer appears, and long narrow strips depend 
 from the lower surface, and appear to connect together the earth and 
 the sky. The discharges of lightning seem at length to affect the 
 homogeneity of the thunder-cloud, which becomes less and less dense, 
 separates into parts, and finally dissolves, or melts into " air, thin 
 air," unfolding to the eye of the spectator a sky without a 
 cloud serene and beautiful. Such are nearly the phenomena 
 which attend the termination of the tempest in the western hemis- 
 phere. " At length a change takes place, and the storm which lately 
 raged so furiously, is over. The sun shines forth with renovated 
 splendor through long extended masses of clouds, which gradually 
 disperse toward the horizon on the north and south, assuming as 
 in the morning, light vapoury forms, and hemming the azure basis 
 of the firmament. A smiling deep blue sky now gladdens the 
 earth, and the horrors of the past are speedily forgotten. In an 
 hour no trace of the storm is visible ; the plants, dried by the 
 warm sunbeams, rear their heads with renewed freshness, and the 
 different kinds of animals obey, as before, their respective instincts 
 and propensities." 
 
 In the summer of 1818, I encountered a violent thunder-storm 
 on the plains of Lombardy, and I advert to it, because the sky, 
 previous to the tempest, had assumed a most extraordinary appear- 
 ance : as far as the eye could reach, it was clothed with an ash- 
 colored cloud, singularly pouched or bagged, as if it were puck- 
 ered or tucked up by some attachment, so that the immense plane 
 seemed composed of huge vesicles. The storm overtook me as I 
 walked from Como to Milan. The peals of thunder were dreadful, 
 and the lightnings frequent and intensely vivid. The rain fell in 
 torrents, or rather one descending sheet, and the fields and the 
 roads were soon inundated. I found temporary shelter in a hut 
 which the floods had subsequently nearly swept away. In coun- 
 tries within the tropics, or in lower latitudes, the lightnings are 
 much more awful in their character than in this country. A 
 gentleman once informed me that he had seen the thunder-cloud 
 apparently rent in twain, and discover as it were an immense orb 
 of lightning which seemed to burst, and shoot its arrowy shafts 
 as from a centre, in every direction of the heavens. 
 
II 
 
 The influence of the thunder-storm is usually of a limited 
 extent, but not universally. The storm of the 30th of July, 1830, 
 extended from Wolverhampton to Glasgow and Fife ; and was said 
 also to have embraced a part of Ireland. The simultaneous form- 
 ation of storm-clouds in different parts of the heavens, and at 
 remote distances, is not the least wonderful of these remarkable 
 phaenomena. On the 5tlj June, 1784, a set of electric balls, rung 
 with electricity, when the clouds were elevated, and no indication 
 of rain, while a violent thunder-storm attended by a considerable 
 fall of destructive hail, took place about 50 miles distant. That 
 thunder-storms have an occasional extensive range, may be also 
 inferred from the following circumstances. On the 7th October, 
 1831, Henry Baker was killed under an oak at Burton-on-Trent, 
 three others were rendered for a time insensible, and one danger- 
 ously ill. On Friday after, five calves belonging to an individual 
 near Bridgnorth, were killed under an oak, and on the same day, 
 near Hereford, an oak was struck, the weight of which was 
 four tons. The entire trunk and branches were rent, and scat- 
 tered in all directions, in pieces about the size of a lath, and one 
 piece about eleven feet long, was carried a distance of 20 feet. 
 Even in the individual discharge which takes place from the 
 storm-cloud, a very considerable range is occupied in some cases ; 
 this, however, in all probability, must be ascribed to the continuity 
 being dislocated, and its compact and homogeneous form, divided 
 into branches by conducting materials scattered over the space on 
 which its shaft alights, and its powers or intensity will of course be 
 attenuated in the ratio of that diffusion. On the 30th day of June, 
 1821, the lightning struck the State Prison at Charleston, Massa- 
 chussetts, and extended its influence over a considerable area. 
 All the officers, convicts, &c. were more or less affected. The 
 prison had three conductors, 18 feet from each- other, along all 
 of which the lightning seems to have passed, but did no further 
 damage than merely to displace a few tiles from thereof adjoining. 
 Nearly 300 officers, convicts, &c. were affected by the lightning, 
 but none were injured. All of them appear to have had some 
 description of metallic'instrument in their hands, such as hammers, 
 muskets, &c. and adjoining the convict yard was an armoury sup- 
 plied with 30 guns, a similar number of pikes, &r. Individuals 
 
 - 
 
12 
 
 standing 500 feet apart were equally affected. One of the officers 
 who was using a saw, observed it as if encompassed with " light 
 red Jfire." The effects of the lightning were felt over a surface of 
 172,000 feet, and in nearly the same degree. 
 
 * 
 
CHAP. 
 
 The Thunder-storm in both hemispheres Accompaniments of th storm Hail-itone~ 
 Effects of Lightning Fulgurites. 
 
 BEFORE the hurricanes in the East Indies come on, there is a 
 dead and ominous calm, the winds are hushed to sullen repose. 
 This dread pause continues for about ten minutes. The kites and 
 vultures scream and are terrified. The hurricane, like a giant re- 
 freshed by sleep, rises on the blast, and nothing can withstand 
 the terrific fury of the embattled elements in which earth, sea, 
 and air seem to contend together for the mastery. Trees are 
 plucked up by the root, and the roofs of houses torn off and 
 whirled into the air. This resistless violence continues about 
 the space of an hour. 
 
 The sheet lightning is that most frequently seen in India. It 
 exhibits a bright purplish light, repeated at intervals of about a 
 minute, illuminating the entire hemisphere with a painful bril- 
 liancy, and leaving the sky shrouded in tenfold darkness, as if " it 
 taught light to counterfeit a gloom." Mr. Elpinstone has given a 
 graphic description of the storms that prevail during the mon- 
 soons, when the waters of the Ganges overflow their banks, and 
 inundate the plains of Hindostan. 
 
 Spix and Martius, in their interesting work on the Brazils, 
 have supplied us with the phaenomena of the thunder-storm in the 
 New World. " The clouds are lowering ; they divide into 
 strata, and gradually getting heavier, denser, and darker, at last 
 veil the horizon in a bluish grey mist. Towards the zenith, they 
 tower up in bright broad spreading masses, and assume the ap- 
 pearance of gigantic mountains in the air. All at once the sky is 
 completely overcast, excepting that a few spots of deep blue still 
 appear through the clouds. The sun is hid, but the heat of the 
 atmosphere is more oppressive. The noontide is past ; a cheerless 
 melancholy gloom hangs heavily over nature the temperature is 
 already lowered ; the fierce and clashing gales tear up trees by 
 the roots. Dark and foaming billows swell the surface of the 
 
14 
 
 deeply agitated sea. The roar of the river is surpassed by the 
 sound of the wind, and the waters seem to flow silently into the 
 ocean. There the storm rages. Twice thrice flashes of pale 
 blue lightning traverse the clouds in rapid succession : as often does 
 the thunder roll in loud and prolonged claps through the firma- 
 ment. Drops of rain fall. The plants begin to recover their 
 natural freshness ; it thunders again, and the thunder is followed, 
 not by rain, but by torrents, which flow down from the convulsed 
 sky. The forest groans ; the whizzing rustle of the waving leaves 
 becomes a hollow murmuring sound, which at length resembles 
 the distant roll of muffled drums. Flowers are scattered to and 
 fro, leaves are stripped from the boughs, branches are torn 
 from the stems, and massy trees are overthrown. The terrors of 
 this eventful hour fall heavily even on the animal world. The fea- 
 thered inhabitants of the woods are struck dumb, and flutter about 
 in dismay on the ground ; myriads of insects seek shelter under 
 leaves and trunks of trees. The wild Mammalia are tamed, and 
 suspend their work of war and carnage." 
 
 Chateaubriand has, in like manner, very accurately delineated a 
 thunder-storm in the western hemisphere, and as it gives us a 
 faithful portrait of the same meteoric phenomena, it may appro- 
 priately follow what I have quoted from the work of the Bavarian 
 Naturalists. " Clouds begin to spring up from the north-western 
 horizon, slowly rising in the sky. The sun becomes overcast 
 the first muttering of the thunder is heard the crocodiles reply 
 to it with a hollow roar, as one thunder-peal answers another. 
 An immense column of clouds extends from north-east to south- 
 east : the rest of the sky is of a dirty copper colour, semi-trans- 
 parent, and tinged with the lightning. The wilderness, illumined 
 by a false day the storm suspended over our heads, and ready to 
 burst, present a scene replete with grandeur. The tempest com- 
 mences. Figure to yourself a deluge of fire, without wind and 
 without water. The smell of sulphur fills the atmosphere nature 
 is lighted as by the flames of a conflagration. Now the cataracts 
 of the abyss open ; the drops of rain are not separate a sheet of 
 water unites the clouds and the earth. These storms frequently 
 set fire to the forests ; they continue to burn till the conflagration 
 is stopped by the current of some river. These burnt forests are 
 converted into lakes and marshes. The Curlews, whose voice we 
 
15 
 
 hear in the atmosphere amidst the rain and the thunder, amiounea 
 the conclusion of the storm. The wind rends the clouds, which 
 fly shattered across the heavens ; the thunder and lightning-, 
 attached to their flank, follow them the air becomes cool and 
 sonorous ; no relic of the deluge is left but the drops of water 
 which fall in pearls from the foliage of the trees." 
 
 Dr. Boyle gives a lively and correct account of the African 
 Tornado as it rages at Sierra Leone. " Its approach is first dis- 
 cernible by the appearance of a small clear silvery speck at a high 
 altitude in the heavenly expanse, which increases and descends 
 towards the horizon with a gradual and slow, but visible motion. 
 In its descent it becomes circumscribed by a dark ray, which ex- 
 tends itself on every side, and as soon as the silvery cloud 
 approaches the horizon, veils it in an impenetrable gloom." The 
 system now feels an excessive oppression, and becomes as it were 
 paralysed. The vitality of nature seems suspended, and the 
 " dread note of preparation" is heard in the distant thunder. 
 The aerial artillery waxes " louder and louder;" the whole 
 heavens are wrapped in one electric blaze of lightning, and the 
 peals of thunder become at length terrific and appalling, while 
 from the " blackness of darkness" which shrouds the firmament, 
 a mighty wind rushes, and overwhelms every thing in its resist- 
 less impetuosity. Meanwhile sheets of water descend from the 
 sky, and inundate and devastate the country. The Kamsin, or 
 " wind of fifty days," it appears is attended with electrical phae- 
 nomena, and no doubt the moving columns of sand which some- 
 times traverse the desert, owe their origin to a cause rooted in 
 atmospherical electricity. The Schirocco of the shores of the 
 Mediterranean, and the Typhon of the China seas, are doubtless 
 more or less dependent on the same agency. The tempest which 
 accompanies the thunder-storm in South America, is thus des- 
 cribed by Temple in his Travels in Peru.* "The night is dark 
 as Erebus, and one might fancy that the ocean had changed 
 places with the skies, and was rushing down impetuously to take 
 possession of its natural position. In the utter obscurity of the 
 night, you cannot suppose that the deluge which pours and roars 
 around you, can proceed from any thing else than the ocean itself 
 turned topsy-turvy." 
 
 * Vol i. p. 24. 
 
16 
 
 In tropical countries, the phenomena of the storm, compared 
 with their counterparts in these higher latitudes, are truly terri- 
 ble, and though the thunder-storm is sometimes even among our- 
 selves, formidable and full of alarm, it sinks in the comparison, 
 into absolute insignificance. 
 
 Among the accompaniments of the thunder-storm, and which 
 indeed may be considered an accidental effect of the electricity of 
 the storm-cloud, I may mention the phaenomena of hail; the pro- 
 duction or formation of which, though the subject of much 
 ingenious speculation, and a question which has exercised the 
 genius and talent of the Natural Philosopher, does not appear to 
 me one of much difficulty. Every electrician must feel persuaded 
 that one obvious character of electricity is its property of dilating 
 or expanding bodies; hence a drop of ether expanded by the 
 electric spark, propels a ball with considerable force ; moist clay 
 expands and bursts, and a piece of wood is shivered to fragments. 
 The natural effect of such an expansive force on a portion of moist 
 atmospheric air under its influence, would be the production of 
 intense cold, the consequence of a sudden rarefaction ; and instant 
 congelation, under such circumstances, would take place. The 
 tunicated form of some hailstones proves an alliance with those 
 numerous concentric circles formed by electricity, and com- 
 municated to a cake of resin by means of an electrified point, 
 against which there has been subsequently projected a resinous 
 powder, agreeable to the curious experiments of Professor Lichten- 
 berg, a phenomenon too which I have observed on the inner 
 surface of a globular " shew bottle," placed in the window of a 
 druggist. The liquid was tinged with cochineal, to which, I was 
 informed, alum and acetous acid had been added. This curious 
 and permanent impress appears to have been effected by the solar 
 ray acting on the colouring matter, and precipitating it on the 
 surface farthest removed from the window. In corroboration of 
 this view of the formation of hail, it may be added, that if air pre- 
 viously condensed, be suffered to rush suddenly from its reservoir, 
 a small portion of water contained in a thin glass ball placed in 
 the current, will be immediately frozen, a phenomenon exempli- 
 fied on a grand scale in the instance of the celebrated mine of 
 Chemnitz, in Hungary, where the air, blended with water, rush- 
 ing out suddenly, falls in a shower of snow. 
 
17 
 
 Some of the hail-storms which have been recorded are of a 
 most formidable character, and the hailstones in many instances of 
 a most incredible magnitude. On 4th January, 1829, hailstones 
 fell at Edmonton; near London, of an irregular form, some mea- 
 suring three and four inches in circumference. In the years 1799, 
 1800, and 1801, many families in France were reduced to ruin by 
 the destructive effects of hailstones on their vine and olive yards, 
 and corn fields. In the Mysore country, towards the close of 
 Tippoo Sultan's reign, a mass of ice fell near Seringapatam, of 
 the size of an " elephant." This fact is recorded and well 
 authenticated, and the late Colonel Mark Wilks informed me in 
 the presence of Mr. Anthony Dunlop, at his residence in the Isle 
 of Man, that he investigated the circumstance on the spot, where it 
 was authenticated by the independent testimony of many indi- 
 viduals then alive, and who distinctly remembered the extraordi- 
 nary occurrence. After deducting as much for Oriental fancy as 
 we properly can, there still remains enough for special wonder. 
 Hail-storms are by no means such rare phenomena in tropical 
 countries as has been supposed. Dr. A. T. Christie mentions a 
 violent hail-storm which occurred during his residence at Hydera- 
 bad, in May 1823, when the quantity collected was sufficient to 
 cool the wine of a military mess for several days ; and another at 
 Darwar, about June 1825, where the hailstones are represented 
 as having a white porous nucleus, and varying from the size of a 
 filbert to that of a pigeon's egg. Lieutenant- Colonel Bowler, of 
 the Madras army, witnessed a hail-storm at Trichinopoly, in 1805, 
 in which the hailstones were as large as walnuts. Indeed masses 
 of ice, or hailstones of considerable size have, at different times, 
 fallen in Asia, from the clouds, and the details come to us so well 
 authenticated as to leave no doubt of their accuracy. Dr. Halls 
 mentions a storm of hail in Lancashire, &c., in 1697, on the 29th 
 April, that for 60 miles in length, and two in breadth, destroyed 
 trees, and even killed birds, and knocked down men and horses, 
 A storm of hail fell near Liverpool in 1795, which almost destroyed 
 vegetation, and the fracture of glass was very considerable ; many 
 of the hailstones measured five inches in circumference. In the 
 year 1510, there prevailed in Italy a darkness deeper than mid- 
 night, succeeded by a storm of thunder, lightning, and hail, 
 which is represented to have destroyed all the birds and beasts, 
 and even the fish of the lakes and rivers. The storm was accqm- 
 
 D 
 
18 
 
 parried with a sulphureous smell ; the stones which fell were of a 
 bluish colour, and some of them weighed one hundred-weight. 
 I shall add to the preceding remarks, the details of a few hail- 
 storms of the present century. There was a terrific shower of hail 
 at Monte Video on the 17th October, 1824, which continued 
 about 15 minutes. The stones which fell are described as of 
 the size of goose eggs, and some even larger. Several weighed 
 three pounds each, three hours after their fall. This fall of hail 
 was accompanied by a violent thunder-storm, arid all the windows 
 were smashed to pieces. A friend who was at Venice has sup- 
 plied me with a note from his memoranda, of a destructive hail- 
 storm witnessed by him in that city on the 23rd July, 1825. It 
 was attended with thunder, lightning, and rain. It appears to 
 have done considerable damage, and lasted 30 minutes. The 
 hailstones were the size of hens' eggs, and the thermometer fell 
 from 86 to 68 of Fahrenheit. The trees and crops in the garden 
 of the Armenian Convent were almost totally destroyed, and the 
 vineyard on an adjoining island presented, on the following day, a 
 sad picture of desolation. 
 
 A thunder-storm occurred at Oporto on the 2nd April, 1830, 
 at two o'clock, a. m. Great damage is stated to have been done 
 to the windows and roofs of houses ; and gardens. The hailstones 
 which fell were as large as walnuts or pigeons' eggs. It appears 
 from the Aberdeen Chronicle that a severe thunder-storm took 
 place at Marnock, in Scotland, on Sunday, the 30th May, 1830. 
 This storm was accompanied with a fall of hailstones or fragments 
 of ice, which measured from four to five inches in circumference, 
 and though it lasted only ten minutes, the hailstones were 15 
 inches deep on the ground, and took 30 hours to dissolve. On 
 this occasion the destruction of glass was immense. One gentle- 
 man lost 2,000 square-feet of glass in his hothouses ; in fact all 
 the hothouses at Auchintoul House were completely destroyed. 
 Vegetation also suffered severely the cabbages were pierced as 
 with grape shot, and the hailstones rebounded several feet from 
 the surface of the earth. This thunder-storm was accompanied 
 by a tornado ; roofs were dismantled, and transported to a dis- 
 tance: and a " peat stack" was carried, at a great elevation, to 
 the distance of 20 miles, and when in the air, as seen by a lady 
 from her carriage, appeared like a dense phalanx of crows. 
 
 In the Duchy of Parma, a violent hurricane took place on the 
 
19 
 
 17th June, 1831, on the eve of a rich and luxuriant harvest ait 
 extent of country 30 miles long', and from 10 to 15 miles broad, 
 presented a scene of the most complete devastation. All the hope 
 and promise of the year were destroyed, and buried under heaps 
 of hailstones, the smallest weighing half a pound, and the largest 
 three pounds. The forms which these hailstones presented were 
 various, round, cylindrical, and square. The latter were from 
 one to three inches thick, and two to eight inches broad. Thirty 
 villages between San Dorimo and Parma, were entirely ruined. 
 The extent of the destruction was much increased by the inunda- 
 tion of the Taro and Parma. The detail in the Parma Gazette 
 is full of horror. 
 
 Mr. W. Spence describes a hail-storm at Lausanne, on the 14th 
 July, 1831. " A great proportion of the hailstones were as big as 
 hens' eggs, and some even bigger : seven nearly filled a common 
 dinner plate. They were mostly oval or globular, but one piece 
 brought to us after the storm, was flat and square, full two inches 
 long, as many broad, and three-quarters of an inch thick, with 
 several projecting knobs of ice, as big as large hazel nuts. This 
 mass exactly resembled a piece of uniformly transparent ice, but 
 the oval and globular masses had the same conformation as has 
 often been described in these hailstones, and on which Volta 
 founded his ingenious but untenable theory of their formation. 
 In the centre of each was a small white opaque nucleus, the size 
 of a pea, and evidently one of the hailstones usually seen in 
 England, to which the French give the name of gresil, confining 
 the term grele to the larger masses of ice now under our observa- 
 tion. This nucleus of gresil was enclosed in a coat, about half an 
 inch thick, of ice considerably more transparent than it, but still 
 somewhat opaque, as though of snow melted and then frozen again, 
 and externally the rest of the mass was of ice perfectly transparent, 
 and as compact and hard as possible, resounding like a pebble, 
 and not breaking when thrown on the floor. The inhabitants of 
 Lausanne, aware that the cinerous and puffed up appearance of 
 the clouds charged with this tremendous aerial artillery, portended 
 more than a mere thunder-storm, had adopted the precaution of 
 closing their Venetian shutters ; but such windows as were de- 
 prived of this protection had almost every pane broken ; and much 
 damage was done to the tiles of all the houses, and to the gardens 
 
20 
 
 and vineyards." This storm lasted only seven or eight minutes. 
 A thunder-storm occurred in Silesia on the 16th August, 1832. 
 Accounts state its having almost entirely destroyed thirteen vil- 
 lages. Some of the hailstones were nearly one pound weight; and 
 though the continuance of the storm did not exceed a quarter of 
 an hour, the hailstones were half a yard deep. 
 
 A hail-storm occurred at Constantinople, on the 5th October, 
 1831. About six o'clock, a. m., threatening clouds rose in the dis- 
 tant horizon, to the south-west ; and after sounds altogether 
 peculiar, being neither those of the tempest or of thunder, lumps 
 of ice began to fall, first singly, and in size as large as 
 a man's foot. This was succeeded by a thick shower of 
 hailstones which seem to have destroyed every thing they 
 came in contact with. Some of those picked up half an hour after- 
 wards, weighed nearly a pound, and were 14 inches in circumfer- 
 ence. This storm passed over Constantinople and along the course 
 of the Bosphorus, over Therapia, Bajukdere, and Belgrade; and the 
 fairest and only hope of this beautiful and fertile tract (the vintage 
 just commenced) was destroyed. Animals of all kinds, and some 
 persons are stated to have been killed, an innumerable quantity 
 wounded, and the damage done to the houses incalculable. It 
 was added, that scarcely a window in all the country had escaped. 
 The force of the falling masses of ice was so great that they broke to 
 atoms all the tiles on the roofs, and shattered like rnusket-balls, 
 planks half an inch thick. The rain for several subsequent days 
 continued to descend in torrents. The form of the hailstones were 
 various; some tunicated like an onion, others irregularly quad- 
 rangular, &c. 
 
 The annexed figure, copied 
 from one of the tunicated hail, 
 stones, represents its correct form 
 and natural size. 
 
21 
 
 In February, 1750, a violent shock of an earthquake seems to 
 have been felt in London, accompanied with tempests of thunder, 
 lightning, the Aurora Borealis, rain, and hail. It was repeated 
 on the same day of the following month, between five and six 
 o'clock, a. m. *' The shock was preceded by low flashes of light- 
 ning, and a rumbling noise, like that of a heavy carriage rolling 
 over a hollow pavement. Its vibrations shook every house from 
 top to bottom, and in many places the bells were heard to strike."* 
 In August, 1763, a storm of lightning, rain, and hail, occurred in 
 London and adjacent parts, and did damage to the amount of 
 50,0001. Hailstones fell from two to ten inches in circumference. 
 There was a sudden flux and reflux of the tide at Plymouth, simi- 
 lar to that which took place there at the period of the great 
 earthquake at Lisbon. The consentaneous (if the term be per- 
 mitted) occurrence of earthquakes and volcanic phenomena in 
 distant regions, with tempests and storms, the rise and fall of tides 
 and lakes, and the troubling of the waters of springs, &c. shew a 
 mystical dependence on causes which, though obscure, must be 
 common in their source, and connected by lines of communication, 
 however remote the extremes may be. A thunder- storm took place 
 near Brussels on the 20th of August, 1763. The storm was 
 attended by vivid and intense lightning, the roofs of houses were 
 forthwith dismantled, upwards of 1000 large trees torn up by the 
 roots or broken off close by the ground, and some transported to a 
 distance of more than 100 paces. Entire coppices were laid on 
 one side like corn prostrated by an ordinary wind. Such windows 
 as were exposed were shivered to pieces, and a tent transported 
 from a garden to a distance of 4000 paces. On 9th October, 
 1803, a tremendous thunder-storm occurred in Madeira. Rain 
 fell in sheets or immense torrents. The rivers overflowed their 
 banks, and with an impetuous and overwhelming torrent swept 
 away entire vineyards, and other plantations, with cattle, wine 
 stores, and the huts of the inhabitants, who with their whole 
 families perished. Stores of immense magnitude, as well as the 
 largest trees, torn up by the roots, were carried down by the 
 inundation from the mountains to the channel of the sea. " The 
 greatest havoc and devastation occasioned by the rains was in 
 
 * Valpy's Divines of the Church of England. 
 
22 
 
 Funchal. Here, as in the twinkling- of an eye, whole streets of 
 houses, with their inhabitants, were swept into the ocean. 
 Churches, bridges, and edifices of every description, were involved 
 in the general wreck, leaving hardly a stone or other vestige 
 behind them to be discovered on the following morning, when the 
 storm abated." It is computed that 300 persons perished. The 
 monsoons of the East, and hurricanes of the West Indies, are so 
 many additional examples of the " signs and wonders of the fir- 
 mament.*' 
 
 The effects of lightning are as wonderful as is the power of the 
 assailant. Though lofty edifices be sometimes the subjects of its 
 assault, lower structures, and trees, &c. but little elevated above the 
 plain, are singled out, and become its victims.* Some conducting 
 point either in the objects struck, or in the soil or substrata, 
 has determined the course of the lightning, for its direction is 
 guided and governed by laws. 
 
 " There is," says Captain Tuckey in his Narrative, "a singu- 
 lar pyramidal stone, (a natural block of loose granite, with another 
 perched upon it,) which rises out of the circular summit of a hill. 
 It is called Enzazzi, or the lightning-stone, and is held in venera- 
 tion." The cause of this veneration may perhaps be found in its 
 attraction for lightning, and the meteor may have been seen to 
 fall upon or flicker around it. The pyramidal monument 
 near Glasgow, reared to the memory of Nelson, was scarcely 
 finished, when the lightning fell upon it and rent it in twain 
 nearly from top to bottom ; while the united testimonies of Rich, 
 Buckingham, Sir R. K. Porter, and others, concur in ascribing to 
 the effects of lightning, the rent of the Birs Nemroud, 
 among the ruins of Babylon. This ruin seems to have been the 
 tower of Babel, and subsequently the temple of Belus; a conclu- 
 sion legitimately established by Mr. Rich, and Mr. Buckingham, 
 though in opposition to Mr. Mignan and Major Rennell. The 
 very fact of its having been struck by lightning, might lead them 
 to consecrate the spot to Baali, Baal, Bel, or Belus. It is interest- 
 
 * On the 7th September, 1832, the lightning struck the wall of the parish 
 stone-yard, in Richmond-street, Lisson Grove, and rent it to the foundation 
 in an extent of nearly 90 feet. The wall, &c. fell with a tremendous crash, 
 choked up the mouth of the tunnel, and overflowed the towing path to a 
 considerable distance. 
 
23 
 
 ing to observe that the Rabbi, Benjamin of Tudela, who lived about 
 the year 1160, and who visited Syria and Palestine, alludes 
 to it. " About 10 cubits of the winding ascent which formerly 
 went up to the top in the same orbicular manner, are still remain- 
 ing. From this tower you have a prospect of twenty miles round, 
 for the country is very open and level ; but the fire of heaven fell 
 upon it and shattered the tower from the top to the very founda- 
 tion."* Last summer the lightning struck the obelisk at Castle 
 Howard, the seat of the Earl of Carlisle, and considerably injured 
 it. I have a specimen of fused amphibole from the summit of Mont 
 Blanc, which I cannot doubt was the effect of lightning. 
 
 The effects of lightning are sometimes extremely curious and 
 unaccountable. Among its more singular impressions may be 
 mentioned those which blasted the attempt of the Jews, and the 
 apostate Julian to rebuild the temple on Mount Moriah. The 
 rash enterprise was just begun when an earthquake shook the 
 Mountain to its centre. Flakes of fire broke forth, accompanied with 
 fearful explosions. The iron tools of the workmen were melted, 
 and impressions like crosses were left on the clothes of those en- 
 gaged in the work. A crusade, denounced by Him who was 
 " greater than the temple," was thus frustrated, promising though 
 the auspices were, under which the adventure was begun, 
 by the visible interposition of a divine hand. The accounts 
 of the matter left us on record by Pagan writers are sufficient to 
 shew a direct and immediate interference, and the opus reticulatum 
 still remains to attest the fact, and stand in evidence of the miracle. 
 
 I have elsewhere given an account of the effects of a thunder- 
 storm at Lichfield : the following, recorded in " Silliman's 
 American Journal," is equally remarkable and curious: "On the 
 3d June, 1826, during a heavy shower of rain, a clap of thunder 
 burst, with tremendous explosion, over a house in Weathersfield, 
 Connecticut. The lightning ran down the chimney to the ceiling 
 of the front room, where it came through, leaving a hole nearly an 
 
 inch in diameter tore off the paper and plaster from the wall 
 
 descended on a row of nails in the laths to a picture melted all 
 the gilding burned and tore one side of the frame and, again 
 rending its way, ran upon the nails to the fire-place, and sepa- 
 
 * Travels of Rabbi Benjamin, &c. London, 12mo. 1783, p. 106. 
 
24 
 
 rated the breast-work from the chimney ; and from thence taking 
 a horizontal direction, attracted by an umbrella in the corner of 
 the cupboard, a small line was to be seen from a nail to a bolt in 
 an opposite closet. From the umbrella it went off at an angle, 
 and came out over the fire-place in a lower room, in nine holes, the 
 largest the size of a common gimblet, scorching and slightly tear- 
 ing the paper. It entered at the corner of a picture, melted the 
 gilding, blackened the frame, and passing off at another corner, 
 separated again into several lines, intersecting each other, until 
 they centered in a nail in the shelf. It passed down the back of 
 the moulding, tore away a hard cement below, threw forward a 
 false back of brick and iron, split the floor on each side of the 
 hearth, rent off splinters two feet in length from the under floor in 
 the cellar, and went east and west through a stone wall into the 
 earth. The greatest force was exerted in the chamber-closet. 
 The point of the umbrella was brass, and just beneath the wire 
 which connects the whalebone it was burnt off; and the silk, the 
 stick, and the whalebone, were nearly consumed. Several folds in 
 some woollen carpets were burnt. A fur muff, a cloth coat, and 
 some other articles were also much injured ; a sleeve and part of 
 the waist of the coat were destroyed, while the cottonlining to which 
 they were stitched was left whole, and excepting a small piece, 
 was not even tender from scorching. A black sulphureous smoke 
 arose from the spot, and filled the house. A lady was in the closet 
 with the door shut, and but a foot distant from the course of the 
 lightning. The sound was dreadful, like cannon at her ears, and 
 the heat inexpressibly great, as if she were in the midst of flames. 
 She spoke at first of intense light, but all consciousness of that has 
 since passed from her mind. In this terrific and awful situation 
 she was preserved unhurt, came out immediately and closed the door. 
 It may be remarked that she was clothed in cotton, and a roll of 
 carpeting stood between her and the umbrella. Five boards 
 were thrown down, and four rooms were filled with the smell of 
 sulphur, and covered with soot. The electrical fluid entered four 
 closets adjoining the room in the lower story, ran round china 
 cups, plates, &c., raised and dissolved the gilding or converted it 
 into the purple oxyde of gold, and, leaving a dark bluish 
 path next to a nail, where it splintered the partition, escaped 
 through the back of a door to a hinge. In a closet, without paint, 
 
25 
 
 it discoloured the wood three inches in width, broke four dishes, 
 and drove out nine nails, four of them from a hinge; in a third it 
 left an aperture, as large as a bullet-hole, in the ceiling, split the 
 floor three feet, and tore up four inches, about an inch wide. In 
 a fourth, it overturned, tossed out, and broke large phials of medi- 
 cines, pill boxes, wafer-boxes, &c. drove four nails partly out of 
 the hinges, and rent off a piece of the casement. On the top shelf 
 lay several iron articles. It pierced the ceiling in the back room, 
 came down in two branches, and so completely dissipated four cents 
 iveighing about 165 grains, which lay upon a nail in the moulding, 
 that, except a metallic stain on the lead paint of the shelf, not a 
 trace of them remained ; they appear to have flashed away like gun- 
 powder. In the chamber, eight feet from the chimney, it came out 
 over the corner of a looking glass in three places, the largest like 
 a girnblet-hole split the back-board of the glass into three parts, 
 melted the gilding, and went off at an opposite corner in one large 
 place and nine small ones, through the wall to a window in the room 
 beneath, splintered the casement by a nail into five or six small 
 pieces, and killed a rose-bush which was tied to a nail on the 
 outside of the house. Opposite, and fifteen feet from the chimney, 
 hung a piece of embroidery ; three small holes were left in the 
 wall over one corner of it ; two thirds of the top of the frame, 
 which is of mahogany, is split up to a corner ; where it appears as 
 if the fluid ran down the back of the glass, to a basket wrought 
 with gold thread, and, blackening it, passed off at another corner, 
 through three small places in the wall, and came out in five points like 
 nail marks in the ceiling over a looking glass in the first story, ran 
 all over the gilding, and went off through the wall by the nails which 
 support the glass. The paint in the chamber was turned of a very dark 
 colour with a metallic cast : the paper was red and blue, the red, 
 excepting near the floor, had entirely disappeared. There was no 
 lightning-rod on the house." 
 
 The preceding description of the effects of lightning is very 
 interesting, and, conjoined with what I have detailed in another 
 place, reads an instructive lesson to us. Here is ample evidence of 
 the division of the meteor into various ramifications or streams, 
 a curious selection of metallic materials and their fusion, oxydation, 
 and vaporization, when insulated either partially or entirely, 
 (being thus discontinuous conductors) wherever they stood in 
 
 E 
 
26 
 
 the way of its progress ; and its leap to non- conducting substances 
 which were destroyed, or fractured, or burnt up, together with the 
 non-electric if in contact with them. It seems to me highly probable 
 that the lightning, when it scorches or vaporizes, carries with it, 
 part of the materials on which it has been occupied ; and that its 
 momentum is increased partly by the opposition it meets with in its 
 progress to the earth, by the non-conducting media and materials 
 that obstruct its path. 
 
 In 1828, the Catholic chapel atWrexham, Denbighshire, which 
 was newly erected, and had not yet been opened for public worship, 
 was struck by lightning during a thunder-storm. I was imme- 
 diately afterwards on the spot, and examined with some care the 
 effects of the lightning. The meteor descended the chimney 
 (which was still damp) in two branches. One of these passed 
 down one flue to the ground floor ; this chimney place had as 
 yet received no grate. The lightning perforated the brick and 
 mortar at the angle, and pouncing on a spade inclined against it, 
 the cross-piece at the top, fastened by a nail, was wrenched off, 
 the shaft splintered, and part of the iron spade fused at the edge : 
 from this spot it dashed through the window, which it shattered 
 considerably. One of the inmates in the adjoining room on the 
 ground floor received a violent electric shock, and was knocked 
 down. The superior branch of the lightning after descending the 
 flue to the grate on the first floor, left the impress of its power on 
 the grate by an evidence of partial fusion on points and angles. 
 From thence it darted to a partition wall separating the body of 
 the chapel from the rest of the building, and with a surprising 
 fierceness, tore up a considerable extent of lath and plaster, determined 
 by the nails which fastened the former. The door was torn from 
 its hinges; from thence it seized on the hinges of the door 
 which led to the altar ; these hinges it tore from the railing to 
 which they were attached, and entering the enclosure, appears 
 to have ramified and diffused itself over the carpetting, singeing it 
 here and there, in contact with the nails that fastened it to the 
 ground, and many of them exhibited evident marks of having 
 been fused. From hence the lightning seems to have been 
 attracted to the iron curtain rod in an adjoining window. The 
 window frame and glass were completely shattered, and the paint 
 stained with the metallic oxyde of the iron rod. The gable of the 
 
27 
 
 building was rent by the lightning for a considerable extent 
 downward. Mr. Lloyd, of Whittington, near Oswestry, informed 
 rne that some years ago his house was struck with lightning during 
 a thunder-storm, about the middle of the ridge on the roof. 
 The lead was perforated with a minute hole. It expended 
 itself chiefly on the lath and plaster wall, which it demolished, and 
 unlinked part of a iron chain. A dog in the kitchen howled, and 
 no doubt received a shock, as did Mr. L.'s brother, who accom- 
 panied him into the kitchen immediately after. 
 
 During a tremendous thunder-storm at Huddersfield, on 13th 
 July, 1831, two buildings, at some distance apart, and forming a 
 triangle with St. Paul's new church, were struck. One of these was 
 the house inhabited by Mr. Clough : the lightning appears to have 
 been attracted by the iron clamps of the chimney, and, after hurling the 
 stones about in all directions, some being projected to the distance 
 of forty yards, it finally discharged its fury downwards in a 
 shower of soot, of which some bushels were collected. It then 
 darted through an opposite window in the kitchen, which it 
 destroyed, determined by iron palisadoes without, and buried 
 itself in the earth. A mass of these ponderous stones fell on 
 the roof of some adjoining buildings, and forced their way 
 through. These stones seem to have been shattered as by an 
 explosive force from their interior, and I presume the phenomenon 
 is most easily to be accounted for by the sudden expansion of 
 absorbed moisture acted on by lightning. It cannot, I think, 
 be doubted that this is the chief cause, though certainly not the 
 only one, by which the Alpine rock is shivered in its eagle seat 
 and hurled into the valley. It is however known that in winter 
 the sudden expansion of the water of infiltration in the act of con- 
 gelation, while it rends the glacier and launches the avalanche, 
 also rifts the rock and disperses its fragments. I confess, how- 
 ever, that without taking into estimate this power of the electric 
 meteor, it is difficult for me to account for those numerous frag- 
 ments of rocks which are met with on the summits and acclivities 
 of some mountains. They are angular, and have clearly been 
 the ruin of mountainous masses shattered by some convulsive force 
 or explosive power. The fall of the electric bolt is a circumstance 
 which readily solves the problem of these phtenomena, and without 
 which it seems difficult, it not impossible, to account for them. 
 
28 
 
 Diffused over an immense area they seem as if launched from the 
 heavens, or scattered by the arm of a Titan. About three years 
 ago several persons had taken shelter under an alcove, having an 
 iron roof supported by stone pillars, during a thunder storm, near 
 Malvern, Worcestershire. The lightning at the same time struck 
 a stone, which it shivered to fragments. I have my information 
 from an individual who instantly repaired to the spot after the 
 accident.* 
 
 The house of Mr. John Lister, of the White Lion Inn, on a 
 line with that of Mr. Clough, mentioned in the preceding para- 
 graph, and forming with St. Paul's Church, the base of a scalene 
 triangle, was struck at the same time, attracted by the several flues 
 of a chimney. It entered several rooms, destroying every thing 
 that chanced to be in its way, and was then conducted into other 
 rooms by the bell wires, from which wires, in some places, the 
 paint had scaled off, and hung in narrow strips ; in other parts the 
 bell -wire was fused, and even vaporized, some melted portions 
 had fallen on the floor. In the commercial room the vaporized 
 bell-wire left on the wall an extensive stain of oxyde of copper 
 where the bell-wire had previously been, and which had entirely 
 disappeared. I had the following copied from the wall, from 
 whence it will be perceived that the impression in the sub- 
 joined figure, is somewhat of a nebulous character. 
 
 * The curious configurations of dust on the pavement similar to the 
 figures assumed by one kind of electricity on a resinous cake, and^rendered 
 visible by the projection of a mixed powder against them, is entirely' an 
 electric phenomenon, explained first by the late Dr. James Miller, of Edin- 
 burgh ; but there is still another which has been, if I mistake not, entirely 
 overlooked, though in itself of sufficiently curious interest. I now allude to 
 the semblance of distinct foot marks in the sand-stone flag stones. To this 
 phenomenon I have paid considerable attention, and feel altogether persuaded 
 that the laminae scale off in consequence of the electricity excited by the 
 footstep, its influence being communicated to the absorbed moisture which 
 
29 
 
 I noticed in this room a very curious phenomenon. The hat 
 pins of cast-iron ranged on opposite walls, which were fast- 
 ened in a frame of wood, were snapped off close by the wood, as by 
 a mechanical power ; few were left, and these generally alternate 
 ones. In this room, the electric matter had darted from the bell- 
 wire to a brass candlestick on the mantel piece, and the candle- 
 stick was melted in parts, the wood- work which formed the chim- 
 ney-piece and casing was wrenched from the wall, and much 
 shattered. On examining the attic roof, I found that it was 
 perforated, but from its diversified ramifications it was difficult to 
 trace its main branch ; obeying no steady direction ; wherever it 
 found anything in the shape of a conductor, it seized on it with 
 savage fury, and whatever non-conductor interfered with its pro- 
 gress it destroyed. Scarcely a room in the house appeared to have 
 been unvisited by it ; in one room some chimney-piece ornaments 
 of various kinds were destroyed, or tossed on the floor, and ano- 
 ther candlestick partially melted. From this room it darted 
 through the wall, perforating it as if bored by a very small gimb- 
 let, and entered the adjoining bed-room close by the edge of a 
 picture in a broad gilt frame. On this gilding it seems to have 
 fluttered, as if in playfulness, and had covered it almost all over 
 with a curious cobweb-like tissue of purple threads the purple 
 oxyde of gold, while the glass remained without the slightest evi- 
 dence of fracture. It seems also to have visited in like manner 
 the gilded mouldings of the bed, and consumed in an instant the 
 wood shavings with which the grate was supplied. 
 
 expands and throws off the superincumbent laminse ; and though these of neces- 
 sity, from the inequality of pressure, must be irregular forms, yet the distinct print 
 of the sole of the footstep may be frequently seen in all its true proportions and 
 form. I have also observed the right and left foot marks of the same 
 individual, and so distinctly characterized that there could be no mistake 
 on the subject. It is the foot which causes those configurations of dust 
 already adverted to, and this is merely another natural effect of the same 
 cause. It is thus, I imagine, an easy matter to account for the foot 
 marks on the summit of Adam's Peak, at Columbo, in Ceylon, and on the 
 Mount of Olives, together with that of "Mahomet's Camel," near Sinai, 
 so long the objects of veneration, of a degraded superstition. I take no note 
 of the gigantic foot mark of Gaudma and its fringe of convoluted shells, now 
 safely lodged in the British Museum; for eastern superilition has Modelled 
 as well as adored it. 
 
30 
 
 The windows and the frame work of some of the rooms entered 
 by the meteor were rent into splinters, and in most cases the glass 
 shivered to fragments. In these remarkable peregrinations, it 
 entered the kitchen, cut the gas pipe in two, and having lighted the 
 gas,* ran along a range of pans, and other kitchen utensils, 
 made its final escape through the window, and destroyed the square 
 of glass through which it passed. It was singularly interesting to 
 follow the manifestations of the presence of the destructive meteor 
 in the traces it left behind : discriminating in its choice, it appears 
 to have run about like a living thing in search of objects whereon 
 to vent its fury. At one period the kitchen presented the appear- 
 ance of an universal blaze of light, and all these remarkable effects 
 were the work of a moment. Two of the inmates were knocked 
 down in one of the upper rooms, but none received permanent 
 injury. During the same thunder-storm, the chimnies at the 
 mansion of James Brooke, Esq., of Grove, were much damaged. 
 
 In the plate prefixed to this work, is the representation of a 
 remarkable effect of lightning, produced on the wall of a house 
 near Paris, on the 14th of February, 1809, by the fusion, and 
 oxydation of iron bell-wire. The length consumed was about 
 two feet, and the surface of the wall was covered with this curious 
 impression of oxydation to an extent of about six feet in length, by 
 four feet in breadth. A large print of the phenomenon was 
 published in Paris, from which the appearance represented in the 
 plate was copied. It is thus announced in the Journal de Phy- 
 sique.^ " Le 14 Fevrier 1809, le Tonnerre tomba sur la maison 
 de M. Badener, No. 2 a Antoine pres Paris. La matiere fulmi- 
 nante volatilissa 8 decimetres de fil de fer de sonnettes, et laissa 
 sur le mur une impreinte de prs de 2 metres de longeur sur 1 
 metre 2 decimetres de largeur." 
 
 * On Sunday evening, 10th March, 1833, during a severe thunder-storm 
 in Belfast, a gentleman living in the south west part of the town had just 
 extinguished his bed room candle as the thunder-storm burst over his house. 
 Such was the intensity of the electric condition of the atmosphere at the 
 moment that the candle was relighted, and a bluish flame continued to play 
 through the room for some seconds. 
 
 f Vol. 61, p. 452. 
 
31 
 
 In addition to the examples of the effects of lightning which 
 1 have cited, I may add a few of the more remarkable phenomena, 
 the details of which have come under my notice. Among the 
 eccentricities of lightning may be mentioned its singularity of des- 
 troying alternate objects, thus each alternate horse in a team has 
 been killed by lightning, and the intermediate horses have escaped. 
 This is generally accomplished by that description of lightning to 
 which I have attached the name of fire balls, which sometimes 
 separate into fragments. I remember a case some years ago, when 
 several cattle were destroyed in a field in Essex, wherein, 
 the lightning having destroyed a cow, appeared to have 
 leaped on another at a short distance, which also became its victim. 
 It is not improbable but the skin, being more or less moist from 
 wet, would determine the selection, or the corresponding colour 
 of the hair guide the progress of the meteor. During a thunder- 
 storm, two individuals were engaged in conversation. One, 
 whose dress had been previously wet with rain, escaped, after 
 feeling a glow of heat, and receiving a shock; while the other, 
 whose clothes were dry, was killed on the spot. In such a case 
 there is no difficulty in accounting for the effect. The lightning 
 would fall harmlessly on an extensive surface of a conducting cha- 
 racter, and its power would be rendered inert from dilution 
 and diffusion. Captain Johnstone, of Mainstone, near Hereford, 
 communicated to me the folio wing phenomena, which he witnessed 
 in 1793, in Pembrokeshire, South Wales. The lightning having 
 struck the steeple of a church, forced down the centre bell of a 
 set of three bells, and taking the line of pews on the left side, its 
 progress could easily be traced by the scorched appearance of the 
 paint up and down the divisions of the pews, and the torn state 
 of the seat cushions, until it arrived at the altar when it forced a 
 hole through the solid wall, (near a yard thick J about the size of 
 half a crown, the orifice appeared blackened as if by gunpowder 
 and smelled strongly of sulphur. When it had escaped into the 
 churchyard, it shot across about 20 yards in a northern direction, 
 and set a cart house on fire, without doing any further injury. 
 
 Some years ago the lightning fell on the shot tower at Derby ; 
 the shock I have been informed by a person who happened to be in 
 the building at the time, shook it to its centre, and when it reached 
 the ground by means of the imperfect conductor attached to the 
 
32 
 
 tower, the lightning 1 flew off at a tangent , to a mass of fragments, 
 of cast iron, and rung its peal on them. No damage was 
 sustained. 
 
 I have already adverted to the red colour selected on paper 
 hangings, and this peculiar selection of colour is often equally re- 
 markable in other cases. In the transactions of the Royal 
 Society is a singular account of a pied bullock having been struck 
 with lightning in Sussex, on the 28th of August, 1774. The 
 peculiarity in this case was, that the lightning detached all the 
 white hair, and left the red untouched. This animal finally reco- 
 vered. The white hair however on the belly remained untouched. 
 A similar phenomenon is on record in the case of another bullock, 
 in which the small red spots on the sides remained unaffected, 
 and the white in like manner under the belly and on the legs re- 
 mained untouched. 
 
 It is stated in the Glasgow Courier, that on the 10th of July, 
 1830, a person named John Robertson employed on the road 
 near Stewartown, became the victim of lightning. His shoes 
 were torn to shreds, and the nails forced out. His watch was 
 also broken to pieces with the exception of the dial which was 
 found entire, 150 yards from the spot. 
 
 In August, 1830, the lightning entered the chimney of a hut 
 near Chelmsford, Essex, and broke the blade of a sword attached 
 to the walls, but did no further damage. About 3 years ago a fe- 
 male at Whitby was using a knitting needle, when a flash of light- 
 ning severed the needle into five pieces. Lightning struck the 
 chain of the main sheet of the Ariadne of Whitby, Captain Naylor, 
 while the vessel lay at anchor near Tilbury Fort, on the 14th of 
 June, 1824 : passing through the Cambouse on deck, it killed a 
 cat, from thence it made its way, through a hammock, struck 
 a bunch of marline spikes attached to a peg and knocked them 
 down, and was afterwards extinguished in the sea, having passed 
 through the bottom of the vessel. Several fragments of the shat- 
 tered chain are in the museum at Whitby, but on examination I 
 did not find that they had acquired permanent magnetism. 
 
 On the llth of March, 1831, the lightning fell on a powder 
 magazine at Port Alegra, about a league from Rio de Janeiro, 
 and blew up 37,500 Ibs. of gunpowder. It was felt in that city 
 like the shock of an earthquake. 
 
33 
 
 Iii the latter end of May, 1832, a girl was killed in Berkshire, 
 by lightning-, during a thunder-storm. She was using an umbrella 
 at the time, and wore a steel busk. On the 3d of July, 1830, it 
 is stated in the German papers, that a female, aged 40 years, was 
 struck with lightning, it having been attracted by a tombac cross, 
 suspended from her neck, which left a visible impression on the 
 skin. On the 5th of July, 1831, an inmate of the penitentiary at 
 Bristol, was engaged at needle- work, when the lightning attracted 
 by a pair of scissors enveloped her in a blaze of light. She was 
 much scorched, and lost the use of one eye. 
 
 During a thunder-storm a few years since, the lightning en- 
 tirely consumed, in one blaze, the cobwebs attached to the inte- 
 rior of one of the warehouses of Messrs. Waterhouse, at Halifax. 
 On the 12th of July last, (1832,) the heath at Chierzac was set on 
 fire by lightning, and the conflagration spread so rapidly that 150 
 men were employed in clearing away the intervening heath to 
 prevent communication with an adjoining forest. About two 
 leagues from Counstances, on the same day, a violent thunder- 
 storm took place, attended with the precipitation of enormous 
 hailstones, by which a number of birds were killed, and a fisher- 
 man on the beach dangerously wounded. The following instance 
 of the effects of lightning, occurred in Shropshire. The meteor 
 entered a room where were two children in bed, who escaped 
 untouched ; the bed posts, however, were destroyed, every pane 
 of glass was driven out of the window, though a small looking- 
 glass, suspended to the window frame, escaped entire. 
 
 About five years ago the lightning struck the bell-tower of the 
 church at Cheen, near Cleobury, about eleven miles from Bridg- 
 north ; the building was set on fire, and five bells out of six were 
 completely melted, and poured down like molten lead. In a 
 thunder-storm that took place last summer (1831), near Hereford, 
 the thick band of iron used as the support of a wooden railing in 
 an adjoining field, was completely melted between each piece of 
 wood : it will be remembered that the bust of the poet Ariosto 
 was struck with lightning prior to the removal of the tomb to the 
 library at Ferrara, and the crown of iron laurels which surrounded 
 the head of the bust, completely melted. 
 
 " The lightning rent from Ariosto's bust, 
 
 The iron crown of laurel's mimic leaves."* 
 
 * Byron. F 
 
34 
 
 In July last year a boy near Leith was paralysed by lightning 
 in his legs and arms, and a gentleman's left arm was paralysed 
 while travelling- in his gig in Fifeshire; the converse of this lias 
 happened, for the paralysed limb has been restored to its wonted 
 vigour, and sight has even been given to the blind. Two per- 
 sons at Lime-works near Kilsyth, were twice struck by lightning, 
 and became insensible. Three stacks of barley were consumed by 
 lightning, near Sleaford, in August, 1832 : the meteor passed 
 through the roof of a house in the vicinity of Boston, and entering 
 four rooms, damaged the ceiling, set two doors on fire, and finally 
 escaped through a window in one of the lower apartments. A 
 toasting fork hanging in one of the lower rooms, attracted the 
 lightning, and was melted in two, also an eg'g slice and a pair of 
 steel tongs. In the neighbourhood of Glendriff Hiil, a person 
 near a hay rick was carried several yards into the air, but did not 
 sustain any material injury. It is stated in the Edin- 
 burgh Observer that at Auchtergaven a whirlwind arose, car- 
 ried up a pigsty e, and lodged it on*the top of an ash tree ; it 
 also lifted a cart-load of fire wood over a house, into the middle 
 of the town, without deranging it. Two dense electrical clouds, at 
 the same time made their appearance in the sky, and as whirlwinds 
 as well as water-spouts have their origin in electricity, they were 
 no doubt connected with the whirlwind in its proximate source. 
 Sometimes a similar phenomenon has been accomplished by what 
 2 is termed by electricians the " returning stroke." 
 
 During last summer there were several severe thunder-storms 
 in Yorkshire, exclusive of those which have been adverted to. 
 At Hainsworth, near Keighley, the electric fluid struck the 
 house of Mr. John Rhodes, shivered a bed-post, and scorched the 
 face of one of his children. At Harrowgate, three joiners who 
 were at work at the Crown Inn, were struck by lightning, 
 and one of them deprived of speech ; the other two were seriously 
 injured. Clifton, near Halifax, was visited with a most severe 
 storm of thunder and lightning, which struck the house of Mr. 
 Samuel Camm, card-maker, with great force, at both ends of the 
 house, throwing off the slates, breaking the hearth-stone in the 
 chamber below, and stones of great thickness in the wall, forcing 
 the plaister, glass, and pictures from the walls, and breaking the 
 windows. Every room in the house was affected except one. 
 
 I copy the following paragraph, descriptive of some remarkable 
 
35 
 
 effects of lightning at Horsforth, in June 1831, from the Leeds 
 Mercury, an ably conducted newspaper ; and the discrimination 
 and prudence of the Editors would have been a sufficient guaran- 
 tee for its accuracy, had it not awakened considerable interest, and 
 induced me to verify the facts by personal enquiry, and obtain 
 further particulars. " On Monday last, about noon, the village of 
 Horsforth was visited by a tremendous thunder-storm. The 
 house of George Law son was struck by the electric fluid ; a square 
 of glass was broken, and the plastering above the window 
 cracked ; in the window were seven plants in pots, and each pot 
 was placed in a white saucer ; the electric fluid drove the saucers 
 from under two of the pots, leaving them in their original situation, 
 and struck three of the children, all of whom were knocked down 
 and remained extremely sick for some time after. It is remarka- 
 ble that the eldest child, aged 11 years, was burnt upon her left arm 
 by the lightning, and an impression exactly corresponding with the 
 branch of the Aloysia citro-odora, one of the plants from under 
 which the saucer had been driven, made upon it. Another little 
 girl, aged three years, was burnt upon the thigh, precisely in the 
 same manner, and upon the left arm, with a representation of the 
 flower of the same plant ; arid the little boy, six years of age, was 
 slightly burnt upon his foot ; the other members of the family es- 
 caped unhurt. In the house of Joseph Riley, which adjoins that 
 of George Lawson, the electric fluid struck a young woman, 22 
 years of age, of the name of Sarah Taylor, and burnt a mark upon 
 her left arm corresponding with the branch of a geranium., which 
 was placed in the window of that house. The house of Mr. Wm. 
 Keir, cloth manufacturer, sustained injury ; the chimney was 
 struck, several slates were torn from the roof, the door was shivered 
 to pieces, and two dishes and a pane of glass were broken in the 
 dairy. At Horsforth Wood Side, the house of Mr. Vesty was 
 struck by the electric fluid, eleven panes of glass were broken, 
 and while Mrs. Vesty and her two sons were at dinner, the plates 
 and dishes were driven from the table, and broke to pieces. On 
 the same day a large oak tree was stripped of all its boughs, and 
 completely peeled of its bark, at Bramley Fall, by lightning." 
 
 In addition to the preceding statement, I received the following 
 detail on the subject of the impressions of the aloysia citro-odora, 
 and geranium, Tho oldest girl was sitting within half a yard, 
 
36 
 
 and the youngest about two yards from the plants. About a dozen 
 leaves of the plant were blasted. It also appears that the clothes worn 
 by the children were dark, one claret-colour, the other blue, and 
 emitted a strong- smell of sulphur, though not at all marked. The 
 impression which remained on the skin for two or three days, was quite 
 red, and both the leaf and the flowers were of the same colour on 
 the skin. Oil and lime water were applied to the marks, after 
 which the impression became fainter. The skin of the eldest girl 
 appears to have been removed to the extent of an inch diameter. 
 The effect appeared to penetrate the skin, and the shade of colour 
 was uniform. The young woman marked with the geranium 
 branch, was about a yard distant from it ; the mark upon her was 
 first black, then changed to blue, and afterwards became red. I 
 know not that I have ever met with any of the phenomena of 
 lightning more remarkable than this circumstance, and I am not 
 aware that in the present state of electrical science, it can be satis- 
 factorily accounted for. The transfer of ponderable matter in the 
 electric flash seems to be substantiated in Fusinieri's experiments, 
 and in some I made expressly with this view, and have mentioned 
 elsewhere ; but the difficulty lies in its impressing a fac simile as 
 by the impress of a seal, of the intervening object it has passed over or 
 pervaded. Here the leaves were blighted, and their form in true 
 proportions pencilled on the skin : this seems a feature in the 
 character of lightning hitherto overlooked and unknown. I re- 
 member to have met with the detail of a singular phenomenon 
 apparently allied to the same principles and as difficult of solution, 
 the memorandum I took of the circumstance, I have unfortunately 
 mislaid, but the fact was substantially this : When a vault was 
 opened in a cemetery, I think in Norfolk, it was discovered that 
 in the roof immediately above one of the coffins, which still retained 
 its original position, a copy or fac simile impression of the coffin 
 plate was observed. Explain the phenomenon as we may, the fact 
 is curious and interesting, and both obviously depend on similar 
 principles. That lightning impresses various forms on the clothes 
 and skin of individuals we have abundant proof, so that the pecu- 
 liar appearances impressed on the clothes of the workmen engaged 
 in the attempt to rebuild the temple on Mount Moriah need excite 
 no scepticism in any mind, and lightning appears to have been 
 the instrument of justice employed to blast the rash crusade. 
 
37 
 
 But how to solve the phenomena on the assumption of Mr. Millrnan 
 about gases, and explosions, and what not, I cannot tell, as it seems 
 to me to violate all pretensions to science. 
 
 The zig-zag or arrowy form of lightning, the brushes, stars, &c. 
 of electric light, the concentric circles, nebulous images, branched 
 and feathery shapes exhibited on resinous plates by positive and 
 negative electricity, and the singular imprint in the frontispiece 
 plate, all combine to shew that its impression may be modified or 
 moulded into singular and curious forms. When Professor Rich- 
 man, of St. Petersburgh, fell a victim to his experiments on light- 
 ning, and the metallic conductors, &c. were destroyed, it will be 
 remembered that they left the impression of their form and dimen- 
 sions on the clothes of his friend Sockolow. These so far 
 illustrate the phenomena detailed in the cases at Horsforth, though 
 it but partially explains them. Respecting the nature of this 
 remarkable agent we know nothing, and our knowledge and 
 research have only scrutinized a limited portion of its phenomena 
 as exemplified in its agency. 
 
 I have presented these statements of the effects of electricity 
 on lightning, not only as curious in themselves; but, as enabling us 
 to judge of its direction, its laws, and its modus operandi, they 
 become useful in assisting to form a proper estimate of relative 
 danger, and the requisite provisions of security and safety. Some 
 individuals have contended, and even appealed to chemical 
 analysis in verification, that all precipitations from the atmosphere, 
 whether in the form of rain, snow, or hail, contain some of the 
 elements of aerolites. Be this as it may, the following analysis of 
 small stones enclosed in hail, which appears to have fallen in 
 the circle of Sterlitamak, in the government of Oneaburg, published 
 in the Bulletin des Sciences Naturelles, seems to countenance the 
 opinion, and though neither chromium nor nickel appears to have 
 been found, a fractional proportion may be supposed to have 
 escaped detection. These were composed of 1*00 peroxyde of 
 iron, 7-0 oxyde of manganese, 7*50 sulphate of alumina, 3'75 silica, 
 7-50 sulphur. 
 
 Among the most surprising phenomena of meteorology is 
 confessedly the formation of meteoric stones ; that these masses are 
 the instantaneous production of atmospherical electricity from 
 materials floating in the air, there can be, I think, no reasonable 
 
38 
 
 doubt; all the difficulties crowd into the scale of opposite opinions. 
 That the agent is quite powerful enough, and fully adequate to this 
 effect, there is ample proof; but as this curious subject is treated 
 at full length elsewhere, I shall now only glance at those enigma- 
 tical tubes called ceraunian scinter, the production of which has 
 very properly been ascribed to lightning ; and on this supposition 
 they have been called "lightning tubes," and also fulgurites and 
 astrophylites. These remarkable silicious productions were first 
 discovered in the Senner Heath, in the county of Lippe ; also, 
 near Konigsberg; at Halle, on the Saale; and latterly near 
 Dibbla, in the country of the Tuaricks, in Africa. Similar hollow 
 tubes have been found at Drigg, on the coast of Cumberland, on 
 the estate of the late Mr. Irton, to whose kindness I was indebted 
 for several very curious specimens. In this case the lightning 
 seems to have struck a bank of loose sand, and penetrated the 
 imperfectly non-conducting material to the depth of about thirty 
 feet, fusing it in its progress, and forming an irregular hollow 
 quadrangular tube, the width of which became narrower as its depth 
 increased, and at about 20 to 30 feet it seems to have encountered 
 in its progress, a small pebble of harnstone porphry, from which it 
 glanced off in different directions, forming as it were a root. The 
 whole of the tube throughout, is lined with a vitreous glaze or enamel. 
 Mr. Irton told me that he had nearly lost his life in his endeavours to 
 obtain an entire tube ; having descended for this purpose, the loose 
 sand gave way, and he was almost buried alive. It was with the 
 greatest difficulty he was extricated from his perilous situation. 
 There can be no question now as to these being the effects of 
 lightning, and we believe their instant production has been actually 
 witnessed on the continent. About two years ago the lightning 
 fell on a stack of hay in the vicinity of Montrose, Scotland, and 
 portions of it were found fused into vitreous masses, no doubt 
 resulting from the fusion of the silica, which enters as a chemical 
 constituent into the epidermis of grasses. 
 
CHAP. III. 
 
 Conductors of Lightning Condensation of Moisture by Trees, &c. Endemic, &c. Pheno- 
 mena Paragreles Personal Security in the Storm The Oak Aranea Aeronautica 
 Identity of Electricity and Magnetism Geography and Electricity of Colour. 
 
 A consideration of the laws which govern electricity and 
 determine the direction of lightning, will enable us to subdue its 
 power and concert measures of safety. A conductor does pre- 
 cisely what Mr. Barlow's correcting plate effects on shipboard in 
 reference to the local attraction of the vessel. The following 
 seem to me to be the necessary conditions which ensure the free 
 efficiency of, and constitute a good conductor of, lightning : Its 
 reception must be facilitated by a fine point, and when received, 
 there must be a perfect and unbroken continuity to allow an 
 unobstructed transit, with a sufficiently extensive conducting surface 
 adequate to a considerable accumulation of electric matter. To 
 these must be added one of the most perfect conducting media, 
 the extremity of which must be sufficiently extended to commit 
 the meteor to the earth, and sufficiently deep to prevent it doing- 
 mischief when it escapes from the conductor. As the security of 
 a conductor is limited in its extent of protection to a radius double 
 the length of the conductor, it follows, that if an extensive building, 
 or a range of buildings, is to be protected, more than one will be 
 required. The conductor should overtop the loftiest spire or 
 pinnacle of the building, and in order to preserve the conducting 
 character of the lightning rod, it should be protected from 
 oxydation. These seem the simple features of a good conductor of 
 lightning ; such a one as may safely be confided in, and will 
 afford ample security. Copper is the best conducting material, if 
 we, perhaps, except silver": accordingly I selected this metal, and 
 adopted the requisite means to preserve it from oxydation ; and as 
 lightning does not penetrate to any appreciable depth, and have pro- 
 vided an extensive conducting surface in my new conductor,* by 
 
 * A great mass of lightning must be provided for ; especially at sea, from 
 the inferior conductibility of water compared with the surface of the earth. 
 In the history of electricity we 'find it recorded that a building was materially 
 injured to which sixteen conducting rods were attached. This superfluous 
 
40 
 
 the employment of a hollow tube, to the interior surface of which 
 the electric meteor finds access by small orifices provided toward 
 the summit of the rod. A reference to the plate will afford, with- 
 out specific figures as to its parts, a correct idea of my plan for a 
 conductor, and I do not know that any necessary desideratum is 
 wanting- in it. This conductor consists of copper gas-piping-, in 
 lengths of about ten feet, screwed into sockets ; terminating at the 
 summit, in a pyramid, inserted by a joint into the hollow pipe ; 
 the lightning therefore finds a ready entrance, not only by the 
 sharp point, but the angles of the pyramid. The pipe immediately 
 beneath this joint is perforated, so that the lightning may be dif- 
 fused over both surfaces, internal as well as external, and the 
 facilities of escape to the earth will be further enhanced by the wet 
 that penetrates the tube during the rain which generally falls in 
 the storm. This lightning rod is secured from oxydatioii by ri- 
 bands of zinc attached at specific distances, which operate on 
 galvanic principles ; the conductor thus constructed, enters 
 the earth at a slight angle, and terminates in a stone trough, 
 which will be supplied with sufficient moisture by the pipe. Here 
 it is split in twain, and its ramifications pass over the edge of the 
 tank into the subsoil. Perhaps this conductor is not only the 
 cheapest but the best ever constructed. The first, because from a 
 hollow pipe being employed, the weight of the copper, and conse- 
 quently the expence, is materially diminished ; and the second, 
 because in these conditions all the principles of security are 
 provided. An extensive and an ample conducting surface is given, 
 and facilities both for its reception and final transfer to the earth 
 fully supplied. Add to these, last riot least, in the train of securi- 
 ties, there is no interruption whatever, from beginning to end, in 
 the channel by which it descends from its elevation. 
 
 The following are the dimensions of the one erected under my 
 directions, at Huddersfield, and attached to the new church (St. 
 Paul's) there : The copper piping used was employed in lengths of 
 ten feet. The piping was half an inch diameter, and the metal 
 half an inch thick : the solid pyramidal rod at top is eighteen 
 
 number might well be supposed to have destroyed the homogeneity of the 
 meteor by division, and in all probability these rods were worse than useless, 
 being composed of iron, and much corroded by oxydation. 
 
41 
 
 inches long. The tower and spire from the ground to the summit of 
 the cross, present an altitude of 170 feet. The piping cost Is. 7d. 
 a yard, and the entire cost did not exceed 3/. 10s. It is obvious 
 that by employing gas piping, we can render, from the inferior 
 cost, these conductors more generally available than they could 
 otherwise be. The church thus supplied with the conductor, 
 forms, with the two buildings described in the preceding chapter, 
 an inequilateral triangle, and it is of importance to observe, that 
 these effects of the meteor were just without the precincts of what 
 electricians call the striking distance. When this fact is conjoined 
 with the loftiness of the spire, towering to an immense height 
 above the surrounding buildings, it must appear, that it affords 
 the most complete evidence of its entire efficacy as a good con- 
 ducting-rod nor is it likely that any lightning-rod has had pro- 
 nounced in its favour, the guarantee of so severe a proof. I had 
 anticipated as an evidence of the complete safety of this conductor, 
 during the prevalence of storms, or in a highly electrified state of 
 the atmosphere, that the lightning would be seen to flicker on its 
 summit, or a brilliant star to illuminate its tip ; accordingly, the 
 lightning has been seen to glance in harmless playfulness in the 
 thunder-storm, over its summit. I am not aware that a similar con- 
 ductor has ever been proposed by any one ; and as far as I know 
 therefore, it is unique. Since the destruction occasioned by the 
 lightning at the White Lion, one of these conductors has been 
 erected there. Two, I believe, at the New Infirmary, on the 
 subject of which I was consulted by Dr. Walker, of Hudders- 
 field, and one or more at gentlemen's seats in the vicinity. At 
 this moment, five or six of these lightning conductors are 
 being erected in Yorkshire. On the question of conductors, 
 I have, in another place, treated at some length, and my 
 present limits forbid me from entering into more extended 
 detail. The lightning-rod should be insulated as much as pos- 
 sible, and, if it can be conveniently done, threaded through 
 wedges of baked wood, (the lightning-rods on the Royal Ex- 
 change, at Paris, pass through glass rings,) and where wires of 
 attachment are required, an intervening belt of some non-con- 
 ductor (leather), will be necessary. Dr. King, of South Carolina, 
 says, that lightning-rods should not be smooth, but rough and 
 ragged, that each point may detach its portion of electric fluid, and 
 
42 
 
 it is said that the rod upon the " State House" has been altered in 
 this manner. To this view of the question we demur, and our rea- 
 sons are these. If the surface of the conductor be rough or bris- 
 tled with points, the electric cloud will diffuse its conflicting in- 
 fluence over a considerable surface, while the great object should be 
 to preserve its homogeneity unbroken, and direct into one uniform 
 channel, by one conduit and at one point, the electric contents 
 of the accumulated mass : besides all this, the point that presents 
 the greatest altitude will be its first recipient, while such a chevaux 
 defrize would tend to scatter in all directions the meteor that ought 
 to be entirely confined to the trunk of the rod : the stem should, 
 therefore, be smooth and rounded. Those at all acquainted with 
 electrical experiments know the tendency of escape manifested 
 by electricity when edges or points are supplied. Besides these 
 considerations, I have found that wherever there has been a crack, 
 or flaw, or abrasion, on the surface, in all such places the violence 
 of lightning has ever been manifested ; thus the full body of 
 lightning has passed in a harmless current along a copper bell 
 wire, and left no traces of its progress until it encountered an 
 irregularity in the surface, or some fracture or trace of oxydation, 
 and there for the first time has it made a furious onset, melting the 
 wire, and by the hiatus thus produced, acquired an accumula- 
 tion of strength. From that moment every thing that interposed 
 in its current has become the victim of its fury. The grand 
 object, therefore, should be to preserve the uniformity and 
 homogeneity of the current, unbroken. Once dislocated and 
 distracted there are no bounds to its violence and fury. A 
 lightning-rod should be as rectilinear as possible, i. e., without 
 curves or angles. This fact has not been kept so steadily in view 
 as its importance demands. On the continent of America, light- 
 ning is frequent ; but where the surface has been cleared of trees, 
 the storm is more rare. There are, I am informed, few or no pub- 
 lic erections in the United States unsupplied with conductors, and 
 accidents by lightning are constant, indeed of common occurrence 
 beyond their pale. I have not treated of lightning conductors in re- 
 ference to ships, as Mr. S. W. Harris, of Plymouth, has occupied that 
 ground, and I do not wish to be considered as "building on another 
 man's foundation." To attach strips of copper to the mast by metallic 
 nails fastened into the wood, is of doubtful character. The surface 
 
43 
 
 of the copper, without some plan to prevent it, would be subject to 
 corrosion or oxydation, and thus entirely destroy its superficial 
 conducting character. A small rod of zinc or iron attached to it, 
 separated from it, except in a few places by interposed lamina of a 
 non-conducting character, would preserve it, and unless this were 
 done, I should tremble for its security when it passes through 
 the keelstone, in which place it must be particularly exposed to 
 the action of bilge water. I must think his endeavours to 
 prove that conductors do not invite or attract the lightning, a labour 
 of supererogation. Thtr Hannibal, of Boston, Captain Low, from 
 Virginia for Liverpool, was struck by lightning on the 22nd April, 
 1824, in lat. 44, long. 40 30', by which three men were killed, and 
 two died subsequently from bruises. The ship was set on fire and 
 abandoned, after ineffectual attempts to extinguish the flames. 
 Two flashes seem to have successively struck the ship : in the 
 second of these, according to Captain Low's observation, a flame 
 of fire appeared to descend the foremast as great as if a chaldron 
 of burning coals had been thrown from the top of the mast. The 
 following, which displays some of the remarkable phsenomena 
 of lightning, is an extract from a communication to Sir Pulteney 
 Malcolm : 
 
 " H. M. S. Southampton, Downs, 6th November, 1832. In a 
 squall at one P. M. yesterday, we were struck with lightning, the 
 electric matter first taking the heel of the mizen top-gallant mast 
 (which was housed), setting fire to the paunch-mat on the mizen 
 top-sail yard, then running down the mizen mast until checked 
 by the sheet of copper in wake of the boom, which partially dis- 
 persed it, took a considerable piece out of the mizen mast, seriously 
 injuring Stephen Elgar and John Gibson, yeomen of the signals. 
 Starting the oak planks and copper bolts about the wheel, it got 
 on the main deck and there took a copper bell pull at the cabin 
 door, which conducted it through ten of the quarter deck beams, 
 four of which are a good deal shook, and all the lining of the sky- 
 light, mast, and other joiner's work, in its course, torn down. 
 The stream of electric matter appears to have divided when it 
 took the bell pull, part of it running across the deck, shivering a box 
 of grape shot to atoms, and, singular to say, put a 24-pounder shot 
 in a state of partial fusion; it descended to the gun- room by a bolt 
 in the water-way, on the larboard side, and then got hold of the 
 
44 
 
 gun-room bell-pull, which carried it over to a cabin on the opposite 
 side, where it exploded, shivering to pieces all the shelves, boxes, 
 &c. In my cabin the explosion was like that of a large quantity of 
 gunpowder : the after-part of the ship was so filled with smoke 
 that at first I was under some apprehension the ship was on fire, 
 and took precautions accordingly." 
 
 In the dock-yard at Woolwich, is part of the mast of a ship 
 of war, where the cleet was struck by lightning, and driven 
 downwards, the nails or fastenings grooving the surface of the 
 mast, and entering between the mast and the iron hoop, the latter 
 was moulded to its form. Vessels, therefore, are struck with 
 lightning, though they are unsupplied with lightning-rods ; and to 
 infer that the storm-cloud could be attracted from afar by a me- 
 tallic point, or arrested in its progress, and forced to empty its 
 contents on its summit, without any previous tendency in the cloud 
 to descend, and pour down its electric store, would be absurd. 
 The topic assumes very much of the complexion of the question 
 once stoutly contested, as to the preference that ought to be 
 given to balls or points. I cannot help thinking that two con- 
 ductors on the plan now recommended, might not only be made 
 effective in preserving the ship from lightning ; but, indicating 
 the approach of a storm, might warn the mariner to prepare for its 
 advent. An electric light playing about the top of the conductor 
 would be a better indication of the tempest than the sudden fall of 
 the barometer, or the phenomenon of the sympiesomcter ; and 
 though this gleam could not be observed by day, a set of Canton's 
 bells might be added, and an electric peal announced by them : the 
 storm " casting its shadow" before " the coming event." Such an 
 arrangement finds its counterpart in that of the castle of the Duino, 
 on the Adriatic. Canton's bells are sometimes suspended over the 
 gateway, in particular residences on the Continent. Dr. Frank- 
 lin's house at Philadelphia was supplied with a metallic rod, ex- 
 tending nine feet above the chimney top. To this rod was con- 
 nected a wire about the diameter of a goose-quill, which descended 
 through the wall of the stair-case; where an interruption was 
 made, so that the ends of the wire, to each of which a little bell 
 was fixed, were distant from each other about six inches ; an in- 
 sulated brass ball hanging between the two bells. Such was the 
 apparatus, which gave the Doctor ample notice of the storm, and 
 
45 
 
 sometimes in sufficiently emphatic peals. It would be advisable, I 
 should conceive, to have this apparatus apart from the conductors, 
 with two of which at least large ships ought to be supplied. 
 The Quorra, iron built vessel, employed in Messrs. Landers' 
 expedition into the interior of Africa, as appears by a recent 
 communication, dated off that coast, completely resists the effects 
 of lightning, which seems harmless when it falls on it, though 
 productive of mischief in the others. This doubtless results from 
 the extensive conducting surface exposed to the meteor, and its 
 consequent attenuation from its distribution and diffusion. Thus 
 iron bridges, metallic hothouses, iron forges, and stores, &c. 
 escape, and perhaps steam vessels. 
 
 We had elsewhere recorded a remarkable phenomenon,* 
 namely, the condensation of moisture suspended in the atmosphere, 
 by a tall Lombardy poplar. On this the editor of the " Gentleman's 
 Magazine" is pleased to sport a little scepticism, under the impression 
 that I had not sufficiently restrained my fancy in its description. 
 I have only to say, that I gave in simple terms, the facts of the 
 phenomenon. When I describe physical truths, fancy shall have 
 no share in the case. My statement shall ever be " the words of 
 truth and soberness." There are on record notable facts of a si- 
 milar kind, and why should it be deemed incre.dible in this particular 
 instance. Not to mention the " raining tree" of one of the Canary 
 Islands, the spartium nubigenum, which, perhaps, is not a solitary 
 exampl^jyere vegetation sufficiently investigated in its recesses,) 
 thTSTfgh certainly remarkable ; the-amiable philosopher of Selborne 
 has described phenomena somewhat similar. I have on the table 
 before me, a communication by a clergyman in confirmation of the 
 fact. Soon after leaving Cheltenham, on the 26th March, 1830, 
 a fall of dense fog came on. The fog settled on the hats, coats, 
 &c. like long white fur. This continued nearly an hour. The 
 fog then disappeared and the sun shone out. The weather through 
 the month of March had been fine, without rain. The roads were 
 perfectly dry where there were no trees by the road side. In a 
 short time I observed a wet place extending in a semi-circular 
 form over half the road. The degree of wet was equal to what a 
 water cart produces. Water ran from the place several yards along 
 
 * Atmospherical Electricity, 2nd edition, London, 1830, p. 60. 
 
46 
 
 the dusty part of the road. The coachman said " a spring had 
 broken out," but there never had been one there before, and it 
 was curious it should appear in such weather. A similar wet 
 place again occurred ; as a tree was immediately opposite to this 
 as well as in the former place, it appeared certain that the tree 
 caused the wetness. This was soon confirmed, for trees now 
 frequently occurred by the road side, and opposite each was a 
 wet place, larger or smaller, more or less wet, according to the 
 size of the tree. 1 have considered that electricity is concerned in 
 these singular phenomena, an inference which I apprehend can 
 easily be substantiated. 
 
 I have received the description of an electrical phenomenon 
 attended with a sudden and extraordinary deposition of moisture, 
 for which communication I am indebted to Dr. James Kerr, of 
 Paisley. On Monday, 23rd June, 1817, at four p. m., the ther- 
 mometer stood at77, Fahrenheit. The weather had been previously 
 dry, when the pavement and walls became suddenly damp, water 
 trickled from the latter, and carpenter's iron tools, such as saws, 
 &c. suspended against the walls, were completely wet. There 
 was bright sunshine, and the sky almost cloudless. The tempera- 
 ture fell 10. On referring to the Glasgow Chronicle for 28th 
 June and 1st July, 1817, and the Inverness Journal, we observe 
 some interesting facts connected with this phaenomenon, which 
 seems to have been general. Among the rest we find that vegeta- 
 tion had progressed with unusual rapidity. " Several of the 
 stalks of grain which were measured in fields adjacent to Perth 
 have grown an inch daily." "On Sunday and Monday the 
 quantity of moisture which existed in the air was such as only 
 occurs in tropical climates, and had it not been for the quiescent 
 state of the atmosphere and the great elevation of temperature, 
 (85 in the shade) it must have been attended with copious and 
 extensive rains." The attenuated intensity of colour in flowers 
 is also mentioned, and the wild rose and violet cited as examples. 
 It is added, as the consequence of this elevated temperature and 
 moisture, that " the fine wheat crops in the vicinity of Glasgow 
 are getting into ear, and the field potatoes in many places 
 already overshadow half the ground." Proof demonstrative, if 
 indeed any scepticism could be reasonably entertained about it, 
 that the growth of vegetation is accelerated by electricity. The 
 
47 
 
 Inverness Journal mentions a violent thunder-storm which lasted 
 about three-quarters of an hour, followed by showers of warm and 
 heavy rain. The weather had been sultry, and the crops, though pre- 
 viously unpromising 1 , had recovered and become remarkably healthy 
 and vigorous. On the day following the thunder-storm, two smart 
 shocks of an earthquake were felt in Inverness and its vicinity, 
 and in some houses the bells were rung 1 . I have in another place 
 adverted to the connection of vegetation with some peculiar exhibi- 
 tions of electricity. An electric light, or gleam, has been seen to 
 play over the corolla of some flowers, a phaenomenon said to have 
 been first observed on the blossom of the nasturtium ftropeolum 
 majusj by the daughter of Linnaeus. A similar appearance has 
 been noticed on the tuberose and marigold, and on the blossom of 
 the oriental poppy. The poppy is described by the observer, Mr. 
 Green, as having been in full bloom, and overtopping the other 
 flowers of the parterre. It is called a beautiful " luminosity" over 
 the corolla of the plant, and is stated to have been observed for 
 three successive evenings, and at intervals of about ten minutes, 
 "sometimes like a large butterfly encircling the whole of the 
 corolla, sometimes at the points of the petals." This was about 
 eight o'clock, p. m. and it is added that " the atmosphere appeared 
 to be in a very humid and electrical state; drops of water were 
 deposited, and the pollen very much scattered within the corolla." 
 To doubt the phaenomenon being electrical would be pressing 
 scepticism to its utmost limit. Mr. Haggern observed these 
 electrical flashes on the flowers of the following plants in the 
 months of July and August : The marigold, orange lily, monks- 
 hood, and Indian pink. 
 
 It will appear from these premises, that it is reasonable to sup- 
 pose, since luxuriance of vegetation may be fairly ascribed to the 
 electrical condition of the atmosphere, the soil and its rocky sub- 
 stratum, or their respective relations ; so, by reversing these prin- 
 ciples, sterility and desolation would follow, not estimating the 
 influence of mephitic exhalations which must, however, be duly' 
 considered. It is remarkable that since the great earthquake of 
 1087 no wheat will grow on the coast of Peru. A little is raised, 
 it is true, in some places, but it is unproductive. Before the earth- 
 quake a grain of wheat yielded two hundred fold. Rice on the 
 other hand yields a good return. Near Bolton, in Craven, 
 
48 
 
 Yorkshire, there is a vale which seems to receive the frequent 
 visitations of lightning 1 . Some cause must exist for these frequent 
 visits, and except in the relative electric character of the subjacent 
 strata, I confess myself unable to account for the phaenomenon 
 which it presents. It is called, not inappositely, " The Valley of 
 Desolation." A rapid stream, with frequent waterfalls, flows 
 through the middle of the valley. This valley is about 500 feet 
 above the river Wharf , into which it discharges its waters. The 
 valley is clothed with short grass, such as sheep thrive on, and is 
 about 1200 feet above the sea. The whole presents a very desolate 
 scene, from the trees being scathed by lightning. In some trees 
 the trunks are stripped of their bark, and others are levelled with 
 the ground. Every fourth tree is blasted, and only one in 
 eight has entirely escaped. No verdure is found on the blasted 
 spots, but on the other parts of the surface the vegetation, in sum- 
 mer, is luxuriant. I had made some remarks on malaria as aggra- 
 vated by endemic circumstances, and in reference to paragreles. 
 I am indebted to the intelligent editor of the Atlas newspaper for 
 pointing out in connection with rny remarks, a fact which had en- 
 tirely escaped me, namely, that sheep in the Cheviot district are 
 subject to a particular disease, and that it is removed by changing 
 the locality of pasturage.* Without at all justly meriting the im- 
 peachment of attaching undue consequence to electricity, or em- 
 bracing it as an idol of the fancy, it must be granted that its power 
 pervades, and its influence is felt throughout the phaenomena of 
 the universe. That cholera for instance, is epidemic, or at least, 
 that the atmosphere has a tendency so to operate on the human 
 constitution as to produce in it a morbid change, predisposing the 
 animal system to such an attack, will scarce be doubted, notwith- 
 standing the conflicting opinions which have prevailed on this 
 mysterious subject. Judging from rriy own feelings in a locality 
 where cholera has prevailed to a considerable degree, I can have 
 no doubt of it, and if any doubt did exist in my mind on the 
 subject; the decided change was too palpable to be for a 
 
 * " It is a remarkable fact, perhaps, in connexion with this acute suspi- 
 cion, that in the Cheviot district, sheep are liable to a particular disease 
 locally called pine ; the complaint is to be overcome only by removing the 
 sheep from the syenitic porphry of the Cheviot mountains to the lime and 
 sandstone sub-strata of the adjoining district." Atlas. 
 
49 
 
 moment misunderstood. It is remarkable that the aeronautic 
 spider during cholera was seldom seen, and incapable of effecting 
 its aerial excursion, but as soon as cholera abated, the spider as- 
 sumed its wonted character, and for the first time the feathery 
 configurations made their appearance on the pavement. I ex- 
 posed a portion of fresh raw muscle to the atmosphere, when it 
 became distinctly acid in the course of 10 hours, as determined by 
 blue litmus paper. Though not the advocate of animate contagion, 
 I was much surprised at the rapidity with which distilled water 
 became charged with animal matter; which, though invisible to the 
 eye, was detected by nitrate of silver a test pointed out by Dr. John 
 Davy, and which I had employed with success in the analysis of 
 the waters of the Neva and the Ganges. The occasional sensation 
 in the mouth of a metallic taste, was not the least remarkable 
 among the phaenomena manifested, which I, in common with 
 others, experienced more than once. The taste was precisely that 
 felt when a slip of silver and one of zinc are brought together 
 over the tongue. 
 
 It is by no means my intention to enter in this place on the 
 subject of paragreles, which are miniature electric rods, having 
 discussed them at some length in my " Treatise." These are 
 founded on the presumption that violent rains and excessive 
 hail-storms have an electric source, and depend for their foun- 
 dation and accumulation on the principles and laws of electricity ; 
 and should any doubt exist as to their efficiency and claim, 
 the facts should be thoroughly sifted and examined. The distance 
 apart of the paragreles, their height, and the space covered with 
 them, are circumstances it is essentially necessary to know, before 
 any judgment can be pronounced as to their efficiency or non-effi- 
 ciency : with me, at least, there can be no ground of suspicion. 
 
 In this country, indeed, we are happily secure from such 
 terrible floods and hail-storms as waste and desolate the crops in 
 some districts of the continent ; still, however, the loss sustained 
 even here, is sometimes considerable. A thunder-storm of last 
 season appears to have embraced a great part of Norfolk. On the 
 12th of July, at Framlingham, it seems to have been accompanied 
 by a tremendous shower of hail, mingled with fragments of ice. 
 Some of the hailstones were three inches in circumference. 
 Mrs. Rigby suffered severely in her greenhouse, where 1400 
 
panes of glass were destroyed, and great injury sustained among 
 the exotics. In the garden, apples, gooseberries, &c. were torn to 
 pieces, and scattered on the ground. On the 8th of July, last year, 
 the entire harvest in the Commune of Epinal was destroyed by the 
 rain-floods, and the loss estimated at 400,000 francs : "indeed the 
 annual average of damage by hail at the foot of Mont d'Or, is cal- 
 culated at from 8 to 10,000 francs. In 1826, the Agricultural 
 Society of Lyons placed 400 paragreles on the highest elevations 
 of Mont d'Or, in an extent of about six miles, as all the storm- 
 clouds which shower down hail on the fertile lands, lying along 
 its base, pass over it. These vineyards and cornfields we believe 
 have been remarkably protected. The entire expence of the 
 erection of these 400 paragreles did not exceed 1500 to 1600 
 francs, or about 3s. 3d. to 3s. 4d. each, and they will last five 
 years. 
 
 I had suggested an interesting experiment, namely, the inter- 
 spersion of paragreles among the hop grounds, and given what I 
 considered sufficient reasons for the adoption of this measure by the 
 hop grower. Mr. James Rennie, in his usual officious manner, chose 
 without the slightest ground for his uncalled-for attack, to question 
 the propriety of that suggestion, though I believe that my reply 
 has been completely successful. As to the cost, a string which he 
 touches among the rest, let the expence of those erected on Mont 
 d'Or supply the answer, and as hop poles must be supplied at any 
 rate to support the hop bine, the expence of converting a hop pole 
 here and there into a paragrele, would not exceed eighteen-pence 
 each. There is still another important consideration hingeing on 
 this question. Such an arrangement might promote the luxuriance, 
 and of course the health and produce of the hop crop, indepen- 
 dant of the entire security which the hop grounds would receive 
 from the visitations of the storm. A severe thunder-storm, 
 accompanied with hail might, in a few minutes, utterly destroy 
 the entire crop for the year. Can a guarantee against such an 
 event be then a trifle ? I have already adverted to the remark- 
 able luxuriance and rapid growth of the crops during the preva- 
 lence of thunder-storms in Scotland, in 1817. The attachment 
 of globules of dew to the pointed tips of leaves and spines of 
 plants, seems to owe its origin to electric influence, and if any 
 corroboration of the correctness of my views were wanted, it 
 
51 
 
 would be found in the following 1 facts: When electrical con- 
 ductors of iron were placed among the branches of a fruit tree 
 in the orchard, that tree produced a greater crop of fruit than 
 any other. Brunodi Sazzi found that a branch of the gleditschia 
 triacanthos, two feet long-, with one spine, attracted as much 
 electricity as a single brass point. This plant is of rapid growth. 
 Amoreti sowed turnip seed in two pots, one was electrified, and 
 in fifteen days electrified again. In three weeks the plants which 
 had been electrified were four inches higher than those in the 
 other pot. 
 
 A proper attention to the question of conductors and non- 
 conductors of electricity will guide us in the proper means to 
 secure our personal safety. When in the house it will be found 
 necessary to avoid all contact with conducting materials, particu- 
 larly those of a metallic character. Some have foolishly taken 
 refuge in the cellar, under the impression that it was their best 
 security. A medical gentleman, who accidentally entered his 
 cellar during a thunder- storm, informed me he had received a 
 violent shock ; and two or three years ago a person was killed by 
 lightning in a cellar in Yorkshire. Perhaps the best part of a 
 house is the first floor and the centre of a room. For obvious 
 reasons it is well to avoid gilded mouldings, mirrors, pictures, &c., 
 also the fire-place, supplied as it is with conducting materials in 
 the carbonaceous matter that lines the chimney, not to mention 
 the grate and fire-irons. Reclining in as horizontal a position as 
 possible on a sofa, will be favourable to personal security. A 
 patent has, however, unfortunately for our views, been taken 
 out, we believe, for beds, chairs, sofas, &c. being stufied with 
 wire ! In a thunder-storm such would, we think, be perilous 
 in a high degree, and to sit on them were as dangerous as to 
 be placed on a barrel of gunpowder with the match applied. I 
 am no enemy to useful improvement and discovery ; let mental 
 ingenuity have its full swing ; but when the introduction of any 
 novelty, viewed on scientific principles, interferes with individual 
 or public safety, I shall feel it my duty, should it fall into my train 
 of research, to unfold my sentiments honestly on the subject, and 
 leave the public to judge for themselves. Unquestionably the bed, 
 almost entirely insulated, as it usually is, and surrounded as the 
 individual placed on it is, by non- conducting substances, must 
 
52 
 
 offer a safe situation. I have, indeed, heard of cases where 
 individuals under such circumstances have been injured, and even 
 killed ; but these instances are extremely rare, and altogether ' 
 equivocal. Some peculiarities in the case have contributed to an 
 exception, which is altogether extraordinary : on the other hand 
 there are numerous examples of the almost entire furniture in the 
 room having been injured or destroyed, including the bed-posts, 
 and yet the person in bed has escaped entirely. Even the plates 
 on the side board, the knives and forks, and spoons on the table, 
 may determine the direction of the lightning, and every thing 
 metallic about the person had better for a time be laid aside. 
 By referring to some of the examples cited, it will be seen that a 
 tombac cross, a pair of scissors, a knitting needle, (I have else- 
 where mentioned the silver key of a flute) , &c., have been circum- 
 stances determining the course of the meteor ; even the watch 
 and money in the pocket may bias the direction of the lightning. 
 It is scarcely possible to be placed in circumstances to avail our- 
 selves of all these means of security ; but where it can conveniently 
 be done, we should certainly consider our safety best warranted 
 by adopting them. 
 
 I remember on one occasion to have been engaged making elec- 
 trical experiments ; and, during these researches, had been for some 
 time insulated and connected with the prime conductor of the elec- 
 trical machine when in action. Soon afterwards I had applied both 
 hands to my watch to ascertain the hour, when I received a smart 
 electrical shock. It is probable that one of the surfaces of the 
 watch-glass, and perhaps the lower surface of the dial had received 
 the electric charge, the discharge is easily accounted for. It is 
 deemed altogether superfluous to be specific on the several cir- 
 cumstances which may occur to different individuals, as attention 
 to their relation to conductors and non-conductors will determine 
 the most prudent measures. 
 
 When out of doors we should avoid elevated situations, and 
 taking shelter under a wall ; or walking along canals, pools, 
 ponds, or rivers; because water, which is an imperfect conductor, 
 will determine the fall of the lightning ; while the upright human 
 form and the animal fluids afford a more ready escape to the ground. 
 If rain falls during the storm, and the clothes are wet, we shall 
 find our safety in this circumstance. It is nothing short of mad- 
 
53 
 
 ness to use an umbrella in a thunder-storm, since it will present 
 an attractive focus ; and while wet clothes may render the light- 
 ning harmless, the opposite effect will be produced by the imperfect 
 conducting character of the dress. Thus persons have been killed 
 on the coach top during a thunder-storm, when they sought the 
 shelter of an umbrella, while the other passengers have escaped. 
 Mr. D.,of Wakefield, informed me that he has seen the lightning 
 strike an umbrella, which had been held up by a person on the 
 carriage box, during a storm ; it was shivered to pieces, and the 
 individual hurled to the ground. The folly of ringing bells 
 during a thunder-storm cannot be too severely reprobated, as it 
 not only perpetuates superstition, but puts the ringers in jeopardy. 
 The number of lives lost under such circumstances at Carcasonne, 
 in France, ought to be a sufficient warning. The spirit of the 
 storm is not to be thus subdued. The Celtic Deity, Bera, was 
 supposed to preside over the thunder-storm. Tempests rose, and 
 the debacle rushed from the rock at her command. Her abode 
 was on the loftiest hills, and Bera could leap with ease from 
 mountain to mountain. Such was the personification with which 
 a Gothic Mythology clothed the mysteries of the storm-cloud ; but 
 these superstitions belong not to the present day of intellectual 
 endowment. Lord Bacon observes, " it is believed by some that 
 great ringing of bells in populous cities hath chaced away thunder, 
 and also dissipated pestilential air." " Bells," says Fuller, "are 
 no sufficient charm against lightning. The frequent firing of 
 abbey churches by lightning confuteth the proud motto commonly 
 written on bells." " It appears that abbey churches, though 
 quilted with bells almost cap-a-pee, were not proof against the 
 sword of GOD'S vengeance. Yea, generally when the heavens in 
 tempests did strike fire, the steeples of abbeys proved often their 
 timber, whose frequent burnings portended their final destruc- 
 tion." Should the flash be succeeded by the sound,* without any 
 sensible interval, we should cast ourselves on the ground, and 
 maintain a horizontal position ; but what is of most importance to 
 be attended to, is on no account to take shelter under a tree, especi- 
 ally if that tree be insulated ; above all, if it should happen to be 
 an oaky other trees are occasionally struck, but in at least eleven 
 
 * The velocity of electricity is incomparably greater than that of sound, 
 
54 
 
 cases out of twelve, oaks are the victims. It would be extremely 
 difficult to determine the reason for this preference ; but the fact is 
 notorious. It has been suggested to me that it may perhaps be 
 found in the great depth to which the tap root of the oak pene- 
 trates the ground. The idea seems plausible, and the contorted and 
 convoluted structure of the tree may account for the ruin which it 
 suffers when the lightning falls on it. I have already described 
 the remarkable destruction of the oak at the seat of Sir Foster 
 Cunliffe, Baronet, near Wrexham. I got a drawing made* some 
 time afterwards of the oak struck by lightning on 28th June, 
 1813, which stood on a farm then occupied by Wm. Warters, on 
 the estate of the late Sir Wm. Smyth, Baronet, in the parish of 
 Stapleford Tawney, Essex. This tree stood in the middle of a 
 field detached from all other trees. The bole, or main trunk of 
 the tree, was reduced to a complete mass of fibres, but the branches 
 were not injured. The tree fell on the ground, and part of the 
 trunk was scattered in every direction. Some of the pieces were 
 projected to the distance of more than 100 yards; and one piece, 
 weighing more than half a cwt., was carried upwards of 60 yards. 
 In Mr. Loudon's very interesting Magazine of Natural History 
 for July, 1821, No. viii., p. 230, is a curious notice relative to two 
 oaks. One of these, in the parish of Weston, Norfolk, was struck 
 by lightning, 26th September, 1828. Not the slightest particle of 
 bark was left upon the trunk, although not a bough was affected in 
 that way, nor the leaves thrown off, pieces of bark were projected 
 to the distance of 90 yards. This oak seems to have been one of 
 six trees growing in a line and not the tallest. In the summer of 
 1822 a fine oak was struck ; it, however, continued to grow, and 
 even to flourish, till 1828, when it was felled, and proved to be 
 "sound in most parts." The following is the most singular part 
 of the history connected with it. " The tree was large and wide- 
 spreading, affording shade in the summer and shelter in the winter, 
 to the stock turned out to pasture ; and, at times, attracted atten- 
 tion from the number it could cover. From the time of its being 
 struck, not a head of cattle has been near it, not only not seeking 
 its shade, but obviously avoiding the tree as being disagreeable." 
 
 * By Wrn. Franklin, a shoemaker, who made an exquisite sketch of it 
 with pen and ink, scarcely distinguishable from a superior print. This 
 person subsequently received the silver Isis medal from the Society of Arts 
 for a similar drawing. He is now in London, and succeeds as an engraver. 
 
55 
 
 By the kindness of Mr. T. Squire, of Epping, who drew up a 
 very interesting detail of the Toot Hill windmill, destroyed by 
 lightning, in June, 1827, an account of which I have given in my 
 " Treatise on Atmospherical Electricity," I am favoured, among 
 others, with the following, which I selectfrom the number. The first 
 is interesting, as referring to a poplar in the town of Epping. " On 
 the 30th of July, 1827, at 4h. 7m. a. in., a poplar attracted the 
 lightning, which entered about a third way down from the top, 
 where it tore off the bark, as well as near the bottom. The elec- 
 tric fluid did not enter the ground near the root of the tree, which 
 was very dry and dusty, but passed through the leaves of some 
 pompions growing there, from them it rose to the hook of a gate, 
 and passing along the upper rail by the wing of the thimble, it 
 was conducted through the rail by some nails to the latch ; it then 
 passed down the post, which it split, to the ground." 
 
 "On the 27th of April, 1821, between the hours of three and 
 four o'clock, a. m., an oak was struck by lightning not far from 
 Potter's-street, on the London-road. It was a pollard, and stood 
 in a fieJd near a wood. The head was completely struck off, and 
 split into several pieces ; some of which were thrown 70 or 80 
 yards, and one piece, as much as two men could carry, was hurled 
 to a great distance." 
 
 " On the 28th of May, 1821, about three, a. m. a storm rose 
 suddenly from W. N. W., and produced several sharp snapping 
 claps of thunder. Three oaks in one neighbourhood were struck 
 during this storm ; they were nearly in a line with the direction of 
 the storm. Those at each end were about two miles apart, and 
 the other nearly mid-way between them. The one to the west 
 was struck in the head, and very much shattered ; the next re- 
 ceived the lightning at one of the lateral branches. The electric 
 fluid passed along the upper side of this branch for a considerable 
 way, then the under side, and finally down the trunk to the 
 ground, making a groove in the wood, as if a plane had passed 
 down it, throwing the bark off on each side, about six or eight 
 inches; the tree was not otherwise injured. The third tree was 
 struck by one of the side branches, and the bark torn off the trunk 
 from top to bottom, on the north side, but the wood was not 
 injured." 
 
 These additional examples are cited and referred to, to prove 
 
56 
 
 how dangerous it is to seek shelter during a storm under trees, es- 
 pecially the OAK. It seems essential to do so, as the error in 
 question is as common as it is fatal. The greater part of the acci- 
 dents which occur proceed from this source. During last summer a 
 county magistrate was killed by lightning under a tree, whither he 
 had gone for shelter. These facts will also shew how dan- 
 gerous it is to plant the oak on lawns, &c. near gentlemen's seats. 
 I have elsewhere described the ascent of the spider into the 
 atmosphere to electricity, and the conjoined opinions of the 
 Editors of the Eclectic Revieiv, Magazine of Natural History,* 
 Atlas, &c., seem to give me the merit of having established my 
 point. I drew my inferences from facts. It never entered my 
 head to suppose the principle of ascent to be electrical, and then 
 search for facts to support it, or make phsenomena bend to precon- 
 ceived fancies ; on the contrary, my conclusions were the result of 
 research. In Lowthrop's Abridgment of the Trans, of the Royal 
 Society, vol. 11, p. 794, we have the following remarks on the 
 ascent of the spider. " Attending ^o one that wrought a net, I 
 saw it," says a nice observer, " suddenly in the mid-work, desist, 
 and turn his tail into the wind, to dart out a thread with the vio- 
 lence we see water spout out of a spring : this thread taken up by 
 the wind was in a moment emitted some fathoms long, still issuing 
 out of his belly. By and by the spider leapt into the air, and the 
 thread mounted her up swiftly, and 1 found the air filled with old 
 and young sailing on their threads, and undoubtedly, says the 
 relater, seizing gnats and other insects in their passage, there being 
 often manifest signs of slaughter, as legs and wings of flies, on their 
 lines as on their webs below." It is added that this "darting" 
 takes place from the top of a " brand." *' After the first flight, 
 all the time of their sailing, on those threads they make locks, 
 still darting forth fresh supplies of thread to sport and sail by." 
 Dr. Hull says he has seen them shoot their webs three yards long 
 before they begin to sail on them ; and Derham says he has also 
 
 * " From the many proofs brought forward by Mr. Murray and his friends, 
 there seems to be no longer any doubt of the fact ;" as to these charioteers 
 or aeronauts being carried aloft by electricity, and in reference to Mr. 
 Blackwall's " currents," it is added, " it is questionable whether they are at 
 all times so powerful as to cause the ascent of any particle of matter, even so 
 light as an aeronautic spider." 
 
57 
 
 seen them dart their threads, and sail away by means of them. 
 In the summer of 1828, an observer, in a communication to the 
 Philosophical Magazine, says, he made a number of experiments on 
 the lake of Thun, on spiders, is confident they can project their 
 threads 25 to 30 or more yards long 1 , and states one case where 
 the extent was 20 yards, the thread fastening to a tree at that 
 distance from the spot on the lake. The line was drawn tight by 
 the thread being coiled up, and this coil swallowed by the spider, 
 was fastened, and formed a line of communication. To what I 
 have elsewhere advanced on the question of the means by which 
 this extraordinary aerial navigation is accomplished, it would be a 
 superfluous task to make additions. It may be curious, however, 
 to analyze the memoir of M. Virey, of France, as extracted from 
 the Bulletin des Sciences Naturelles,* as communicated to the 
 Royal Institute of France, June, 1821. The author states that 
 these gossamer threads make their appearance in autumn, before 
 the frosts set in, white filaments are seen to traverse the air at 
 different altitudes, and these are called in France, " fils de la 
 vierge." Blanched webs become white, like linen webs, by the 
 prolonged action of air and moisture. These threads carry up 
 with them little springing spiders, as observed by the German 
 Naturalists, Starck, Buhlman, Flugg, &c., and particularly by 
 Gravenhurst, who has described them under the name of Aranea 
 Obstetrix. The phenomena of ascent, our author observes, have 
 been explained in various ways ; as by the influence of evapora- 
 tion, electricity, and ascending currents, as advocated by Mr. John 
 Blackwall. Respecting the last, M. Virey has the following 
 observation : " M. Blackwall n'a pas donn, selon nous une ex- 
 plication satisfaisante du phenomene de 1'ascension aeronautique 
 de ces filamens." As to aerial ascent, M. Virey attributes the 
 original idea connected with this to Gravenhurst, referring to an 
 article in one of the German scientific journals for 1823, who first 
 explained these ascensions, (filamens de la Vierge,) by observing 
 that the wind raises the webs, (previously suspended to the 
 branches of trees) along with the spiders entangled in the meshes, 
 throwing their threads in every direction, ludibria ventis. 
 
 Rejecting the opinions of others, M. Virey proceeds to pro- 
 pound his own, having acquired, according to his peculiar notions, 
 * Paris, 1831., p. 130. 
 
58 
 
 proof of the spontaneous ascent of minute spiders, (the larger 
 ones exhibiting the phenomenon with more difficulty), as de- 
 duced from experiments made in a close room, and consequently 
 without the intervention of winds or currents to aid their ascent. 
 Our author, in despite of former views and theories, comes to the 
 conclusion, that these spiders were only borne into the air, in 
 the first instance, like the claters, by a spring, and afterwards 
 their feet served them for sails and oars, or the balloon and its 
 tackling. His own words are " nous croyons voir en eux seu- 
 lement de tres habiles voltigeurs," then follows an allusion to 
 that particular spider called the " jumping spider," who per- 
 forms his " sauts brusques" without any thread whatever; and 
 certainly if this spider could ascend into, and sail in the air, there 
 might be some faint pretext for the idea, but, unfortunately for 
 this odd notion, it cannot; and M. Virey might as well have singled 
 out the jerboa, or the Canadian jumping mouse, as the elater, or 
 the jumping spider. To observe M. Virey's wonders, we are 
 directed to take the young of the epeira diadema, common 
 enough in spring. These said young are to be held in one hand, 
 and their fall prevented with the other. The hand is passed 
 round to see that no thread is propelled, &c. the spider will 
 then let itself down, and will rise (with sauts brusques ?) from the 
 perpendicular, sometimes horizontal, at other times more or less 
 oblique. He especially directs these experiments to be made 
 in the still air of a room " dans une chambre close, ou Pair tres 
 calme ne puisse recevoir aucune agitation." All this so far, 
 (thus diametrically opposed to Messrs. Blackwall and Rennie) is 
 merely a repetition of experiments I had many years before pub- 
 lished in the " Memoirs" of the Wernerian Society. 
 
 " Les plus grasses boudisent," says M. Virey, " par un eUan 
 si rapide qu'n a pas le terns de bien examiner comment elles 
 disparaissent." After this confession, it is too much to tax our 
 credulity by demanding our assent to unsupported fancies. How- 
 ever, our author, in reflecting on the extraordinary phenomenon 
 of the floatage of these spiders, in defiance of the laws of gravita- 
 tion, came to the following as the only satisfactory conclusion at 
 which he could arrive. That somehow or other the insect by means 
 of its .eight limbs was enabled to swim through the air, but lest 1 
 should be supposed to attach an unwarrantable inference, I give 
 
59 
 
 his own words, " a 1'aide des huit pattes que 1'aninial peut 
 faire vibrer avec agilite, il nage dans /'az'r." This vibration he 
 compares to that of wings, as in dipterous insects and birds. 
 This marvellous gift of flying limbs is certainly a new discovery in 
 physics, and had M. Virey's genius been established in an earlier 
 era of the world, the " pattes volantes" might have been appro- 
 priately substituted for the wings in the Egyptian Sphinx, the 
 Me of the Chinese, and the Griffin of the Greeks. Even Mer- 
 cury and his caduceus might have been plumed with " pattes 
 volantes." Wise in his own conceit, however, he pronounces 
 that every one may prove the matter for himself. I fear, how- 
 ever, that Tekel must be written over against every such attempt. 
 Our philosopher think it more probable that these little spiders 
 " volent avec leurs pattes," than that their ascent should be 
 ascribed either to electricity or aerial currents. No doubt 
 these curious things called " pattes volantes" will be duly pro- 
 vided for in the formulae of the entymologist. M. Virey, however, 
 talks about having demonstrated, by direct experiments, these 
 marvellous announcements, though no such experiments are to be 
 found related in his "Memoire." The following is his conclu- 
 sion : " La Nature modifie danc les organismes selon les 
 functions quelle leur attribue pour ses desseinis, dans la rpu- 
 blique de chaque monde." This paper is certainly a curiosity 
 of its kind. 
 
 To the common observer the cui bono incessantly presents itself, 
 and though we should not reject a particular topic of intellectual 
 pursuit, until its more practically useful adaptation in the economy 
 of life had been discovered, yet even in this, at first sight, trivial 
 research, there seerns to be practical usefulness. The violent winds 
 which blow in the West Indies have, as their herald, a peculiar and 
 curious phenomenon, in the appearance of an immense quantity 
 of fine cobwebs in the air, which stream from all parts of a 
 vessel's rigging. While off Zampico they were observed by an 
 intelligent officer on two occasions, and also at Vera Cruz, all of 
 which were followed by those violent tempests called " Northers." 
 That at Vera Cruz came on at sun rise ; light and delicate in their 
 flimsy structure, the least wind sweeps these cobwebs away, so 
 that they can only be noticed on a calm sunny day, when the 
 atmosphere is tranquil, and then are seen to wave from all 
 
60 
 
 parts of the rigging. The Rio de la Plata is 120 miles wide at 
 its junction with the ocean, and for 150 miles inland not less than 
 from 20 to 30 miles broad. Temple says, that in this river " the 
 rigging of the ship, from top to bottom, was literally covered with 
 long fine cobwebs that had blown off the shore, having attached 
 to them insect manufacturers who dispersed themselves in 
 thousands on our decks." This phenomenon was followed by a 
 storm. Thus they presage the coining storm, and are connected 
 with a falling barometer, another proof of the connection of the 
 rise and fall of the aerial spider with electricity, and those who 
 doubt that an electric change precedes the hurricane or the tempest, 
 must resign all pretentions to the character of an acquaintance 
 with the science of meteorology. 
 
 The following effects of lightning are interesting as con- 
 nected with the communication of magnetism. On 13th April, 
 1832, about half-past three o'clock, p. m., after the travelling car- 
 riage of Mr. and Mrs. T. T. Bodington, of Badger Hall, had left 
 Tenbury, they were overtaken by a thunder-storm. The light- 
 ning struck an old umbrella open at the time. One horse was 
 killed, the postillion unseated and thrown to a distance, and 
 the pole was broken through, the carriage was not materially 
 injured. The umbrella referred to was shivered to pieces, and 
 Mr. and Mrs. Bodington seriously injured. The flash of light- 
 ning to observers seeme^to part into four divisions when it came 
 within thirty yards of the ground. Mr. B.'s gold shirt buttons 
 were fused, a knife ejected from his pocket, and every article of 
 dress torn away as if by gunpowder. Two pairs of scissors in 
 Mrs. B.'s work box were found completely magnetised, and the 
 balance wheel of Mr. B.'s watch so much so, thatit has since been* 
 mounted as a compass. From the umbrella the lightning appears 
 to have been' attracted to a wire in the bonnet of Mrs. Bodington, 
 and finally to the steel busk, which acquired a permanent polarity. 
 Both ends attracted the south pole of the needle, and at about 
 one third from the bottom attracted the north pole. The busk was 
 fused for about | inch on the upper surface, which had a blistered 
 appearance. There were also two other marks. 
 
 The identity of the wonderful agent, we have been considering ; 
 with magnetism, seems now to be fully established ; and passing 
 over all the wonders of electro-magnetism and thermo-magnetism 
 
61 
 
 with the magnetism of light ; it now appears that the electric spark 
 has been actually obtained, both on the continent and in this 
 country, from a powerful magnet. The magnetic bearing and 
 direction of the electric arch and curtain of the aurora borealis have 
 always appeared to me to prove their identity or affinity, and the 
 following phenomenon of a luminous character communicated to 
 the Baron de Zach, seems to be similar. A remarkable light is 
 seen toward the N.E. and S.W., like the zodiacal light, and always 
 observed in the magnetic meridian, appearing more luminous in 
 the N.W. than S.E. This magnetic light may be seen when the 
 sky is partially obscured with clouds. At a very early period of 
 the introduction of electro-magnetism, both Sir Humphry Davy 
 and M. Ampere endeavoured to prove that electricity and magnet- 
 ism were identical. Their proofs failed. I had entertained the 
 same idea from the beginning, and adduced what I considered suffi- 
 cient evidence, nor have I ever since seen cause to alter that 
 opinion. It was, however, too much for me, in Mr. Faraday's 
 estimation, to enter the lists where Ampere and Davy had been 
 foiled. Accordingly he thought proper to attack me anonymously 
 in the " Annals of Philosophy," and it is now curious to see him 
 endeavouring to establish that opinion, which he then ri et armis 
 strove to impugn and controvert. I may subjoin the detail of a 
 few of the experiments I then made with a view to prove their 
 identity. Some of these I stated in a letter to the late Dr. E. D. 
 Clarke, of Cambridge, who, in a subsequent letter to me, men- 
 tioned his having repeated the experiments and shown them to 
 Dr. lire, informing him at the same time that they were due to 
 me. I found that when a horse shoe magnet was immersed in 
 muriate of baryta and sulphate of silver, the silver was entirely 
 reduced. When a broad magnetic bar was partially plunged into 
 a solution of nitrate of silver for some time, the silver was reduced 
 in brilliant metallic plates of a somewhat crystaline arrangement 
 and geometric form, while above the surface of the solution, the 
 steel bar appeared corroded by the vapour of nitrous acid gas. 
 The metallic silver encrusted the ends and edges of the bar, and 
 was most copious where the magnetic influence was most powerful. 
 In solution of permuriate of mercury the magnet precipitated 
 around it, in the same way, globules of running mercury, and the 
 reduction was always more or less abundant, corresponding with 
 
62 
 
 the magnetic power with which the bar was invested. As the 
 electric spark may be employed as an agent of decomposition, and 
 as that spark has been procured from the magnet, the phenomenon 
 I have described, cannot reasonably be assigned to any other 
 cause than the magnetic fluid, thus my conclusions are verified. 
 Besides, chemical affinities are identified with electrical action, 
 and there being in this case chemical affinities more or less ener- 
 getic in proportion to the power of the magnet, it necessarily 
 follows that they are one and the same, though its manifestation in 
 magnetism be a curious feature of its protean character. The 
 decomposition of water, it is stated, has been effected by the elec- 
 tricity of the magnet, and though Mr. Faraday seems reluctant 
 to admit it, I am at a loss to discover on what grounds that slow 
 assent is founded. The electricity which is produced, whether by 
 friction in the electrical machine, or by acids in the galvanic- 
 circle, is an agent to which chemical composition, or decomposition 
 as may be, is subordinated, and it is natural to presume that elec- 
 tricity produced frcrn other sources, whether from light or the 
 magnet, should do the same. 
 
 I have been long persuaded that colours are possessed of an 
 electric character more or less intense, regularly increasing 1 or 
 decreasing agreeable to their position on the chromatic scale, and 
 finding the measure of that intensity expressed in the degree of 
 temperature possessed by^mch, which 1 have found holds good not 
 only in the colours of the prism, or light so decomposed, but in the 
 colours that decorate creation, whether in the animal or vegetable 
 kingdom. A system of decomposition then is always going on in 
 the sunbeams, whether in the gay corolla of the flower or the 
 green attire of the foliage ; and, were this the place, I could de- 
 scribe a series of experiments made with this view, which would 
 go far to demonstrate the position for which I contend. I have 
 ever contemplated a geographical distribution of colour on the 
 surface of the globe, and in THAT GEOGRAPHY OF COLOUR per- 
 ceive that my views are substantially correct. Local circum- 
 stances may interfere, partially, to modify this law, but viewed on 
 the great scale of generalization, it will be found to hold good. 
 In lower latitudes we meet with the scarlet ibis, and other kin- 
 dred birds, while the flamingo gleams among the lagoons of the 
 new world. In these regions are foupd the amhertia nobi/is, bom- 
 
63 
 
 lyx speciosa, the lobelia cardinalis and fulgens, saliva splendens, 
 lychnis calcedonica, and verbena melindris, clothed in equally daz- 
 zling attire. In temperate climes, the prevailing hue will be 
 found towards the middle of the chromatic scale. In Britain, for 
 instance, the yellow ranunculus acris enamels our fields, and the 
 marsh-mallow, &c. spring- up by the verge of the pool. Primroses 
 and cowslips mingle in the woods appear in the hedge row, 
 or clothe the meadow. Just so is it with flowers that sport less 
 gaudy liveries. Blue and white will be more predominant as 
 we advance to the arctic and antarctic circles. It requires no 
 argument to prove that this corresponds with the distribution of 
 the relative intensity of the magnetic force on the terrestrial 
 surface. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 William Parke, Wolverhampt'-n. 
 

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