Part 39

The obvious analogy between lightning and electricity, had long been suspected, and was placed beyond a doubt by Franklin, who was the first to conceive the practicability of drawing down lightning from the clouds. Having found by previous experiments, that the electric fluid is attracted _by points_, he apprehended that lightning might likewise possess the same quality; although the effects of the latter would in that case surpass those of the former in an astonishing degree. Flashes of lightning, he likewise observed, are generally seen crooked and waving in the air; and the electric spark drawn _from_ an irregular body at some distance, when it is drawn _by_ an irregular body, or through a space in which the best conductors are disposed in an irregular manner, always exhibits the same appearance.

Lightning strikes the highest and most pointed objects in its way, in preference to others, as high hills, trees, spires, masts, &c.; and all pointed conductors receive and throw off the electric fluid more readily than those which are terminated by flat surfaces. Lightning is observed to take the best and readiest conductor; and this is also the case with electricity, in the discharge of the Leyden phial; whence Franklin inferred that, in a thunder-storm, it would be safer for a person to have his clothes wet than dry. Lightning burns, dissolves metals, rends some particular bodies, such as the roots and branches of trees, strikes persons with blindness, destroys animal life, deprives magnets of their virtue and reverses their poles; and these are well known properties of electricity. Lightning not only gives polarity to the magnetic needle, but to all bodies which have any portion of iron in them, as brick, &c.; and, by observing which way the poles of these bodies lie, the direction in which the stroke has passed may be known with the utmost certainty.

In order to demonstrate, by actual experiment, the identity of the electric fluid with the matter of lightning, Franklin contrived to bring lightning from the heavens by means of an electrical kite, which he raised on the approach of a thunder-storm; and, with the electricity thus obtained, charged phials, kindled spirits, and performed all other electrical experiments, as they are usually exhibited by an excited globe or tube. This happened in 1752, a month after the French electricians, pursuing the method which he had proposed, had verified the same theory; but without any knowledge on his part of what they had done. On the following year, he further discovered that the air is sometimes electrified positively, and sometimes negatively; and that in the course of one thunder-storm, the clouds change from positive to negative electricity several times. He was not long in perceiving that this important discovery was capable of being applied to practical use; and proposed a method, which he soon accomplished, of securing buildings from being damaged by lightning, by means of conductors, or lightning-rods, the use of which is now universally known.

From a number of judicious experiments made by him, Signor Beccaria concluded that the clouds serve as conductors to convey the electric fluid from those parts of the earth which are overloaded with it, to those where it is exhausted. The same cause by which a cloud is first raised, from vapors dispersed in atmosphere, draws to it those which are already formed, and still continues to form new ones, till the whole collected mass extends so far as to reach a part of the earth where there is a deficiency of the electric fluid, and where the electric matter will discharge itself on the earth. A channel of communication being thus produced, a fresh supply of electric matter is raised from the overloaded part, which continues to be conveyed by the medium of the clouds, till the equilibrium of the fluid is restored between the two places of the earth. He further observes that as the wind constantly blows from the place where the thunder-cloud proceeds, the sudden accumulation of such a prodigious quantity of vapors must displace the air, and repel it on all sides. Indeed, many observations of the descent of lightning confirm his theory of the mode of its ascent; for it often throws before it the parts of conducting bodies, and distributes them along the resisting medium through which it must force its passage; and on this principle the longest flashes of lightning seem to be produced, by its forcing in its way part of the vapors in the air. One of the chief reasons why the report of these flashes is so much protracted, is the vast length of the vacuum made by the passage of the electric matter; for although the air collapses the moment after it has passed, and the vibration, on which the sound depends, commences at the same moment, still, when the flash is directed toward the person who hears the report, the vibrations excited at the nearer end of the track will reach his ear much sooner than those from the remote end, and the sound will, without any echo or repercussion, continue till all the vibrations have successively reached him. The rattling noise of the thunder, which makes it seem as if it passed through arches or were variously broken, is probably owing to the sound being excited among clouds hanging over one another, and the agitated air passing irregularly between them.

Among other precautions pointed out by Franklin, he recommends to those who happen to be in the fields, at the time of a thunder-storm, to place themselves within a few yards of a tree, but not quite near it. Signor Beccaria, however, cautions persons not to depend on a higher, or, in all cases, a better conductor than their own body; since, according to his repeated observations, the lightning by no means descends in one undivided track, but bodies of various kinds conduct their share of it at the same time, in proportion to their quantity and conducting power. The late Earl of Stanhope, in his principles of electricity, observes that damage may be done by lightning, not only by the main stroke and lateral explosion, but likewise by what he calls _the returning stroke_; that is, by the sudden violent return of that part of the natural share of electricity of any conducting body, or any combination of conducting bodies, which had been gradually expelled from such body or bodies respectively, by the superinduced elastic electrical pressure of a thunder-cloud’s electrical atmospheres.

Among the awful phenomena of nature, none have excited more terror than thunder and lightning. It is recorded of several of the profligate Roman emperors, who had procured themselves to be deified, that when they heard the thunder, they tremblingly concealed themselves, acknowledging a divine power greater than their own; _a Jupiter thundering in the heavens_.

REMARKABLE THUNDER-STORMS.

A few instances in which the effects of these storms have been

## particularly characterized, will be both interesting and instructive.

That fermented liquors are apt to be soured and spoiled by thunder, is a fact well known; but that dried substances should be so acted on, is a still more remarkable phenomenon, and not so easy of explanation. It happened, however, some years ago, that in the immense granaries of Dantzic, the repositories of the corn, of Polish growth, intended for exportation, the wheat and rye, which were before dry and sweet, were, by the effect of a violent thunder-storm in the night, rendered clammy and stinking, insomuch that it required several weeks to sweeten them and render them fit for shipping.

The effects of a thunder-storm on a house and its furniture, at New Forge, Ireland, on the ninth of August, 1707, were very singular. It was observed that the day was, throughout, close, hot and sultry, with scarcely any wind, until toward evening, when a breeze came on with mizzling rain, which lasted about an hour. As the air darkened after sunset, several faint flashes of lightning were seen, and thunder-claps heard, as at a distance; but between ten and eleven o’clock they became, in their approach, very violent and terrible, progressively increasing in their intensity, and coming on with more frequency, until toward midnight. A flash of lightning, and a clap of thunder, louder and more dreadful than all the rest, came simultaneously, and shook and inflamed the whole house. The mistress being sensible, at that instant, of a strong sulphureous smell in her chamber, and feeling a thick, gross dust fall on her hands and face as she lay in bed, concluded that part of her house had been thrown down by the thunder, or set on fire by the lightning. The family being called up, and candles lighted, both the bed-chamber, and the kitchen beneath it, were found to be filled with smoke and dust. A looking-glass in the chamber had been broken with such violence, that not a piece of it was to be found of the size of half a crown: several of the pieces were stuck in the chamber-door, which was of oak, as well as on the other side of the room. The edges and corners of some of the pieces of broken glass were tinged of a light flame color, as if they had been heated by the fire. On the following morning it was found that the cornice of the chimney next the bed-chamber had been struck off, and a breach twenty inches in breadth, made in the wall. At this part there was seen on the wall a smutted scar or trace, as if left by the smoke of a candle, which pointed downward to another part of the wall, where a similar breach was made. Within the chamber, the boards on the back of a large hair trunk, filled with linen, were forced in, and two-thirds of the linen pierced or cut through, the cut appearing of a quadrangular figure. Several pieces of muslin and wearing apparel, which lay on the trunk, were dispersed about the room, not in any way singed or scorched, notwithstanding the hair on the back of the trunk, where the breach was made, was singed. In the kitchen, a cat was found dead, with its legs extended as in a moving posture, without any other sign of being hurt, except that the fur was singed a little about the rump.

In the parish of Samford Courtney, near Oakhampton, in Devon, on the seventh of October, 1811, about three in the afternoon, a sudden darkness came on. Several persons being in the church-porch, a great fire-ball fell among them, and threw them down in various directions, but without any one being hurt. The ringers in the belfry declared that they never knew the bells go so heavily, and were obliged to desist from ringing. Looking down from the belfry into the church, they perceived four fire-balls, which suddenly burst, and the church was filled with fire and smoke. One of the congregation received a blow in the neck, which caused him to bleed both at nose and mouth. He observed the fire and smoke to ascend to the tower, where a large beam, on which one of the bells was hung, was broken, and the gudgeon breaking, the bell fell to the floor. One of the pinnacles of the tower, next the town, was carried away, and several of the stones were found near a barn, at a considerable distance from the church.

On the fifteenth of December, 1754, a vast body of lightning fell on the great hulk at Plymouth. It burst out a mile or two to the westward of the hulk, and rushed toward it with incredible velocity. A portion of the derrick (a part of the apparatus which served to hoist in and fix the masts of the men-of-war) was cut out, of a diameter of at least eighteen inches, and about fifteen feet in length: this particular piece was in three or four places girt with iron hoops, about two inches broad, and half an inch thick, which were completely cut in two by the lightning, as if done by the nicest hand and instrument. The lightning was immediately succeeded by a dreadful peal of thunder, and that by a most violent shower of hail, the hailstones being as large as nutmegs, and for the greatest part of the same size and shape.

Among the many fatal accidents by lightning which have befallen ships, the following is a remarkable instance. In the year 1746, a Dutch ship lay in the road of Batavia, and was preparing to depart for Bengal. The afternoon was calm, and toward evening the sails were loosed, to take advantage of the wind which then constantly blows from the land. A black cloud gathered over the hills, and was brought by the wind toward the ship, which it had no sooner reached, than a clap of thunder burst from it, and the lightning set fire to the maintopsail: this being very dry, burned with great fury: and thus the rigging and mast were set on fire. An attempt was immediately made to cut away the mast, but this was prevented by the falling of the burnt rigging from the head of the mast. By degrees the fire communicated to the other masts, and obliged the crew to desert the ship, the hull of which afterward took fire, and burning down to the powder magazine, the upper part was blown into the air, and the lower part sunk where the ship was at anchor.

In crossing the Atlantic, in the month of November, 1749, the crew of an English ship observed a large ball of blue fire rolling on the water. It came down on them so fast, that before they could raise the main-tack, they observed the ball to rise almost perpendicularly, and within a few yards of the main chains: it went off with an explosion as if hundreds of cannon had been fired off simultaneously, and left behind it a great smell of brimstone. The maintopmast was shattered into a thousand pieces, and splints driven out of the mainmast which stuck in the main-deck. Five seamen were knocked down, and one of them greatly burnt, by the explosion. The fireball was apparently of the size of a large millstone, and came from the north-east.

The ingenious and indefatigable Professor Richman lost his life on the sixth of August, 1753, as he was observing, with M. Sokolow, engraver to the royal academy of St. Petersburgh, the effects of electricity on his gnomon, during a thunder-storm. It was ascertained that the lightning was more particularly directed into the professor’s apartment, by the means of his electrical apparatus, for M. Sokolow distinctly saw a globe of blue fire, as large as his clenched hand, jump from the rod of the right gnomon, toward the forehead of Professor Richman, who at that instant was about a foot distant from the rod, observing the electrical index. The globe of fire which struck the professor, was attended with a report as loud as that of a pistol. The nearest metal wire was broken in pieces, and its fragments thrown on M. Sokolow’s clothes, on which burnt marks of their dimensions were left. Half of the glass vessel was broken off, and the metallic filings it contained thrown about the room. Hence it is plain that the force of the lightning was collected on the right rod, which touched the filings of metal in the glass vessel. On examining the effects of the lightning in the professor’s chamber, the door-case was found split half through, and the door torn off, and thrown into the chamber. The lightning therefore seems to have continued its course along the chain conducted under the ceiling of the apartment. In a Latin treatise, published by M. Lomonosow, member of the royal academy of sciences of St. Petersburgh, several curious particulars are mentioned relative to this melancholy catastrophe. At the time of his death, Professor Richman had in his left coat-pocket seventy silver coins, called rubles, which were not in the least altered by the accident which befell him. His clock, which stood in the corner, of the next room, between an open window and the door, was stopped; and the ashes from the hearth thrown about the apartment. Many persons without doors declared that they actually saw the lightning shoot from the cloud to the professor’s apparatus at the top of his house. The author, in speaking of the phenomena of electricity, observes that he once saw during a storm of thunder and lightning, brushes of electrical fire, with a hissing noise, communicate between the iron rod of his apparatus and the sides of his window, and that these were three feet in length, and a foot in breadth.

Somewhat analogous to these movements of electricity, are those connected with the electric telegraph during the violent thunder-storms that so often take place in the summer season. When such storms are raging, and particularly when the lightning is abundant and near, not only is the operation of the telegraph entirely suspended, but sometimes the lightning itself passes with great violence over the wires, in some cases melting and destroying them, and in others passing by them as it does by the lightning-rod, and manifesting its violence chiefly at the point of their termination. In some instances, the wires have been instantly melted by the electric fluid, and in others the machinery of the offices injured or destroyed, while at other times persons have been struck, or dwellings set on fire by its power.

HAIL-STORMS.

On the seventeenth of July, 1666, a violent storm of hail fell on the English coast, in Norfolk and Suffolk. At North Yarmouth the hailstones were comparatively small; but at Snapebridge, one was taken up which measured a foot in circumference; at Seckford Hall, one which measured nine inches; and at Melton, one measuring eight inches. At Friston Hall, one of these hailstones, being put into a balance, weighed two ounces and a half. At Aldborough, it was affirmed that several of them were as large as turkeys’ eggs. A carter had his head broken by them through a stiff felt hat: in some places it bled, and in others tumors arose: the horses were so pelted that they hurried away his cart beyond all command. The hailstones were white, smooth without, and shining within.

On the twenty-fifth of May, 1686, the city of Lille, in Flanders, was visited by a tremendous hail-storm. The hailstones weighed from a quarter of a pound to a pound in weight, and even more. One was observed to contain in the center a dark brown matter, and being thrown into the fire, gave a very loud report. Others were transparent, and melted instantly before the fire. This storm passed over the city and citadel, leaving not a whole glass in the windows on the windward side. The trees were broken, and some beaten down, and partridges and hares killed in abundance.

In 1697, a horrid black cloud, attended with frequent lightnings and thunder, coming with a south-west wind out of Caernarvonshire, in Wales, and passing near Snowdon, was the precursor of a most tremendous hailstorm. In the part of Denbighshire bordering on the sea, all the windows on the weather side were broken by the hailstones discharged from this cloud, and the poultry and lambs, together with a large mastiff, killed. In the north part of Flintshire, several persons had their heads broken, and were grievously bruised in their limbs. The main body of this hail-storm fell on Lancashire, in a right line from Ormskirk to Blackburn, on the borders of Yorkshire. The breadth of the cloud was about two miles, within which compass it did incredible damage, killing all descriptions of fowl and small creatures, and scarcely leaving a whole pane of glass in any of the windows where it passed. What was still worse, it plowed up the earth, and cut off the blade of the green corn, so as utterly to destroy it, the hailstones burying themselves in the ground. These hailstones, some of which weighed five ounces, were of different forms, some round, others semi-spherical; some smooth, others embossed and crenulated, like the foot of a drinking-glass, the ice being very transparent and hard; but a snowy kernel was in the midst of most of them, if not of all. The force of their fall showed that they descended from a great hight. What was thought to be most extraordinary in this phenomenon was, that the vapor which disposed the aqueous parts thus to congeal, should have continued undispersed for so long a tract as upward of sixty miles, and should, during this extensive passage, have occasioned so extraordinary a coagulation and congelation of the watery clouds, as to increase the hailstones to so vast a bulk in so short a space as that of their fall.

On the fourth of May, 1767, at Hitchin, in Hertfordshire, after a violent thunder-storm, a black cloud suddenly arose in the south-west, about two o’clock in the afternoon, the wind then blowing strongly in the east, and was almost instantly followed by a shower of hail, several of the hailstones measuring from seven or eight to thirteen or fourteen inches in diameter. The extremity of the storm fell near Offley, where a young man was killed, and one of his eyes was beaten out of his head, his body being in every part covered with bruises. Another person, nearer to Offley, escaped with his life, but was much bruised. At a nobleman’s seat in the vicinity, seven thousand squares of glass were broken, and great damage was done to all the neighboring houses. The large hailstones fell in such immense quantities, that they tore up the ground, and split many large oaks and other trees, cutting down extensive fields of rye, and destroying several hundred acres of wheat, barley, &c. Their figures were various, some being oval, others round, others pointed, and others again flat.

HURRICANES.