kept near the silver or platinum points of a good lightning-rod, during all the dark hours, for a considerable period of time, they would often be seen crowned with stars, or emitting pencils of mild and harmless rays. The idea of the lightning-rod, and of what is called in France the paragrêle, is to promote this slow and harmless transmission of the electric force between the clouds and the earth, and thus to prevent any great accumulation of it; while at the same time, in case of such accumulation, and of a consequent violent discharge, they afford a safe channel of communication for it. Paragrêles, so called, are small lightning-conductors, set up by means of poles in France in vineyards to aid in drawing off the electricity from the atmosphere over them, and thus prevent the accumulations which, when they occurred, were found to exert some mysterious agency in producing hailstorms. The philosopher Arago proposed that these conductors should be raised and supported by small balloons, which were to be connected by slender wires or chains with the ground. This plan, though perfectly correct in theory, was found to be impracticable, on account of the great expense of setting up and maintaining such a system over any considerable extent of country. LIGHTING THE GAS. The cessant crashing and rolling of thunder. lightning struck and did serious damage in Sometimes the sudden and violent discharges many places. In one instance it fell upon one of great accumulations of electricity are accom- of the gas tubes in the street. It fused a porpanied at the time by a continual flow, affect- tion of the tube, and set the gas on fire, which, ing, especially, all the salient and projecting in its burning, illuminated the whole surroundpoints in the vicinity, and even also extended ing region, and produced universal alarm. surfaces, in many cases, where such surfaces are broken by minute projections. A very violent thunder-storm broke over the city of Paris on the night of the 16th of July, 1866, of which most extraordinary accounts were given in the papers of the following day. The clouds that were formed were enormous in mass and in density, and so rapid was the condensation of vapor that electricity was developed in immense quantities, and it passed to and fro between the clouds and the earth in every conceivable way. The consequence was a continual succession of the most vivid flashes of lightning, and an in While these effects were produced by the violent discharges coming in rapid succession from the accumulations of electric force, there seems to have been also a flow of a more gentle and quiet character, directing itself upon all conducting surfaces and masses, and especially upon every projecting point. Most extraordinary accounts were given in the papers the next day of the lambent flames seen alighting upon every prominent point in the streets, or gliding along the water-courses, or blazing up from the openings of the sewers. Some people saw the street in certain places, as they said, full of fire. These accounts were, no doubt, greatly exaggerated, the minds of the observers being much disturbed by their excitement and their alarm. There is, however, every reason to believe that there was a great deal of reality in the foundation of the stories. In the eastern part of Paris, at the place formerly occupied by the Bastile, there stands a tall column called "The Column of July," being so named from certain great events which occurred during that month on a certain year, and which the column was intended to commemorate. Upon the top of this column is a statue of Liberty standing on tip-toe, and with symbolic wings at his back, extended as in the act of commencing to fly. This column was observed carefully during the storm by a responsible witness, who states that electric light emanated in brilliant coruscations from all the salient points of the figure above, and passed in a luminous stream from the upraised foot to the ball below on which the figure was poised. Other witnesses testify to a similar illumination of the summit of the spire of Nôtre Dame, a tall and slender spire which forms a very striking and most beautiful contrast to the massive towers which form so conspicuous a feature in the façade of that building. This spire rises to a height of nearly three hundred and fifty feet into the air, and the electrical effect observed on this occasion may have been increased by the enormous quantity of lead used in the struc ture, and especially in the statues and other ornaments pertaining to it. A great many curious tales are related of extraordinary interpositions of the electric force in some of the most striking dramas of human life. Arago gives an account of the chief of a band of brigands being struck down in the court-yard of a prison in Bavaria, in the midst of his comrades. He was seated on the pavement, or on a stone, being fastened by an iron chain to a fixed ring or staple, his companions, bound in a similar manner, around him. The electric charge, controlled probably in some degree by the chain and the iron fixture to which it was attached, passed through the body of the chief and instantly killed him. His comrades, knowing nothing of the natural laws by which this terrible agency is controlled, were struck with consternation, believing that the lightning had intelligently selected their ringleader, by the special judgment of Heaven, in retribution for his crimes. In this case, and indeed in many such cases as this, the body of the brigand was so situated as to form part of a chain of communication well adapted for the electricity to pursue in its passage from the atmosphere to the ground. It is always dangerous in a thunder-shower to be so situated in relation to surrounding bodies that are good conductors as to form with them a channel for the passage of the force. Some years ago a house in a town on the THE SPIRE OF NOTRE DAME. DEATH OF THE BRIGAND. sea-coast of Massachusetts was struck with lightning, and one man in the house was killed, while others, though even in the same room, were uninjured. On examining the premises it was found that in the garret, exactly over where the man was sitting in the room below, a saw was hung to the rafter, and the point of it reached the floor almost precisely over the man's head. Then in the basement immediately below the sitting-room were a number of tools, and among others a crow-bar, which was standing against the wall, nearly below the man's feet. The result was that the crow-bar, the body of the man, the saw, and that part of the chimney which was above the roof formed a connected series of conductors for the transmission of the electric force, and the man was killed simply because he, and not the others, came in the track most convenient for the terrible power to pursue. or, of sufficient conducting capacity to afford free transit to the electric charge, is the safest position which a person can take. A house with a good lightning-rod passing down its wall is exactly in that condition. But to be near an imperfect conductor, as a tree, for example, or to form part of a broken chain of conductors, is, on the other hand, the most dangerous. Any small metallic substance about the person, as a pair of spectacles upon the face, a ring upon the finger, or a knife in the pocket, would have no appreciable influence. And yet a novelist might, without too great a violation of probability, represent a murderer as arrested in the act of stabbing his victim by a flash of lightning striking the knife from his hand, and liberating the victim by felling the assassin himself to the ground at the instant of giving the blow. A German writer, giving an account of curious examples of the effects of electrical discharges, states the case of a peasant girl, who, being overtaken by a thunder-shower when walking in the fields, had a golden pin, which was passed through her hair behind to keep it in its place, fused and dissipated by a stroke of lightning without herself suffering any personal injury at all. To guard against such accidents as theseif any such accidents ever really occur-and also as a protection from the general danger of being struck with lightning to which persons are more or less exposed when out in the open air during a storm, some ingenious philosopher has jestingly proposed that a portable lightningrod, in combination with an umbrella, should be provided for people liable to such adventures. A sportsman, then, overtaken by a thunderstorm, if equipped with such a protector-a pointed metallic rod projecting in the air from his umbrella over his head, and connected with a wire or chain to drag on the ground behindcould bring himself and his traps safely along through the midst of the tempest, while the lightnings played harmlessly around him. Whenever the electric discharge takes in its course a metallic substance which, though a To stand by the side of a continuous conduct- good conductor, is not sufficient in mass to fur THE MURDERER'S HAND ARRESTED. nish a free passage for it, the metal is heated, and perhaps fused; and sometimes, when it is quite small in relation to the amount of electricity passing, it is dissipated entirely in a species of vapor. This can be shown by a variety of experiments with electricity artificially excited in the lecture-room. Sometimes a thin film of silver or gold leaf, or a fine wire, is placed between two plates of glass, and when a charge is passed through too great for the conducting capacity of the metal the metal is fused, and the material, or a portion of it, remains indelibly imprinted upon the surfaces of the glass. It is said that cases analogous to this are observed in the action of lightning. Stories are related of females wearing necklaces formed of silver beads or of golden chains being struck by lightning, and stunned, and then, on recovering, finding the forms of the beads or of the links of the chain impressed upon the skin. Such statements as these, however, are much more likely to arise from the excited imaginations of the observers than from effects of this kind really produced, inasmuch as it is very difficult to believe that the electricity could take a personal ornament in its course, without at the same time taking the person of the wearer. In those cases where, as has been already remarked, any conducting bodies near a person are so situated as to form with the body of the person himself a channel of communication from the atmosphere to the ground the danger that the electricity will take that course is very imminent in the event of an accumulation of it near. Among the most curious and striking examples of this are the cases that have occurred of bell-ringers being struck by the lightning following the wetted rope down to them from the bell. The churches in the Middle Ages, in Europe-and to some extent the same feeling exists to the present day-were the objects of many superstitious ideas. It was supposed that they had an influence in warding off diseases, evil spirits, hurricanes, thunder and lightning, and malign influences of all kinds. Ignorant people attributed all these things to the agency of Satan, and thought that the existence of a church, the sight of which was hateful to him, tended to keep him and all his doings at a distance. It was accordingly the custom in some parts of Europe, when a thunder-storm was approaching, to set the bells in all the steeples to ringing, by way of frightening off the lightning; and though many of the superior ecclesiastics set their faces strongly against this folly, and explained to the people that the ringers in such cases exposed themselves to extreme danger, it was with great difficulty that the people could be induced to abandon this curious species of exorcism. In the town of Chabeuil, near Valence, there were on one occasion eleven men employed in a tower in ringing an enormous bell, when the bell was struck by lightning and seven of the men were killed. It is true that they were not ringing at this time for the purpose of keeping off the lightning. The stroke came from a storm which happened to come SAFETY IN A THUNDER-SHOWER. on while they were ringing for another purpose. One would suppose that the folly of such an idea as that a thunder-storm could be arrested, or its violence abated. by the ringing of bells, would soon be made apparent by the failure of the measure to produce any effect. But superstition is not so cured. When the storm passed away without doing any special damage the peasants attributed their immunity altogether to the ringing; and when, on the other hand, it proved severe, and the lightning struck all around them, they attributed the result to their not having rung loud enough! It is by exactly this kind of reasoning that all superstitions and other foolish notions maintain their ground in the minds of men in every age. One of the most singular and least understood of the phenomena connected with the agency of electricity is the formation of WaterSpouts. The evidence is complete that the influence of electricity is very largely concerned in these wonderful gyrations, but whether as cause or effect is not so clear. They are most frequently observed at sea, though sometimes they appear in an imperfect form in lakes or upon other small bodies of water. And even on land, especially in mountainous regions, a commotion in the clouds, attended by an immense fall of rain, has often occurred, presenting appearances closely analogous in their nature to those of the regular water-spout as observed at sea. The first indication of the formation of a waterspout observed by the seamen on board their ship consists of the gradual concentration and settling down of a mass of dark and heavy clouds over the sea, accompanied by great agitation of the water immediately beneath it. The mass of water soon begins FORMATION OF A WATER-SPOUT. |