Orioli gives an example of two men who were surprised by a violent storm near the village of Benvenide. They lay down on the ground to let the meteor pass. Some moments later one of them got up feeling very tired, but the other was dead. The bones of the latter were so soft that it was easy to bend them; his whole body was of the consistency of paste. The tongue had been torn from the roots, and no one knew what had become of it.
Now, just as the earth can strike, so can the human body become fulminating and act like lightning. After having been struck, it can effectively acquire the power to strike in its turn.
For instance, on June 30, 1854, a man named Barri was killed by lightning near the Jardin des Plantes, in Paris, and his body lay for some time exposed to a beating rain. After the storm had passed, two soldiers from the neighbouring guard-house tried to removethe body, and each received a violent blow when they touched it. They got off with a shock, perhaps because the body had been drenched with rain, which acted as a conductor to the electricity, and thus it had had time to lose a part of the fluid.
What a mysterious world is that of atmospheric electricity! It is truly the New World for the scientific mind—a mine, fruitful in unknown and even unsuspected marvels, which is perpetually disclosing its riches for our admiration.
One of our most valued collaborators in our researches on the nature of lightning is photography. Faithfully and unhesitatingly it registers an indestructible document of the fugitive lightning, which imprints itself on the sensitized plate, and the astronomer can afterwards examine the smallest details of the sudden apparition comfortably and at his leisure. We have already a considerable number of plates of the outline of the lightning in flight. An examination of these electric pictures is very interesting.
Who knows whether, later on, when phonography is brought to perfection, it will not also register the noisy accompaniment to the electric flash? Then, with the help of the cinematograph, we could have dramatic representations of sensational storms. While the photograph unrolls all the phases of the lightning, from its emerging from the cloud to its fall to earth,before the gaze of the spectators, the phonograph will repeat the sonorous accents of the terrorizing voice of thunder.
Thunder, as all the world knows, is the noise which accompanies lightning. It is produced when a change of electricity—a neutralization—takes place between two points more or less distant. The causes which provoke it are still somewhat of a mystery.
The luminous rocket which flings itself precipitately from a cloud saturated with electricity, spreads itself like a trail of flames in the atmosphere where an infinity of invisible molecules are floating; these it repels. The passage of this whirlwind of fire in a centre which is greatly compressed produces a momentary void into which the surrounding air at once rushes, and it is the same all the way along the route followed by lightning.
In all probability the equilibrium of the atmosphere, which is momentarily disturbed by the intrusion of the ignited matter, hastily re-establishes itself by a rush of the air which the lightning has ejected, and which is swallowed up with a crash in the opening which has been made. It is, on a large scale, a similar phenomenon to that which is produced by opening a case which has been hermetically sealed. The air rushing in makes a dull noise.
Pouillet objects to this very natural explanation on the ground that the flight of a cannon-ball ought toproduce a similar noise. But this objection errs in its basis, because, as regards velocity, a cannon-ball is as a tortoise as compared with the arrow of lightning, and as regards size, who can compare a few grammes of powder to the torrents of fire launched into space by the prodigious force of electricity?
The lightning discharge produces a violent concussion in the cloud, and very often a shower of rain immediately follows it. The electric conditions of the different clouds which make a storm being separately liable the one to the other, the discharge of one must lead to that of several others more or less distant. In all cases the noise is caused by the expansion of the air where a more or less partial void has been made. It is the same with firearms,crève-vessie, etc.
One of the chief characteristics of thunder is the rolling, which is often prolonged, and reverberates on the sides of steep mountains. This voice, with its lugubrious tone, becomes grave and sometimes sinister in the revolution of space—this voice, celestial and infernal, seems to momentarily dominate the world, while the clouds are enveloped with a thousand diabolical flames. Sometimes it rings in the air with fierce calls, at others it spreads itself in dull, languorous complaints.
Nevertheless, the intenseness of thunder undergoes a thousand fluctuations, and presents astonishingvariations. Generally it strikes and frightens, but the curious thing is that, for the ear, in reality it is less strong than the crinkling noise of a piece of paper torn close to it.
Often, too, it may be compared to the discharge of firearms, a pistol or a cannon.
Thus, when the lightning penetrated Volney's apartments at Naples, the people present, among whom was Saussure, had the impression of a pistol-shot in the next room.
There is a case given of M. and Mme. Boddington, who were seated on the back seat of their coach in order to enjoy the view of the country, and had given the inside seats to two servants. Suddenly there was a flash of lightning, which struck M. and Mme. Boddington and flung the postillion to a great distance. The servants were untouched, and escaped with a fright. When they got over their terror, one of them said that a very brilliant flash of lightning had been immediately followed by a noise similar to that of a heavily charged musket. He thought some one had shot the horses. His fright had stunned him so that he hardly knew what had happened.
At other times thunder is accompanied by a whistling noise, but as a rule it is the rolling which predominates.
We ask ourselves to what it is due that this rollinglasts so long. There are several causes. The first is due to the length of lightning and the difference in speed between sound and light. Let us suppose, for example, a flash of lightning, AE, 11,000 metres long. The observer stationed at O, underneath extremity E of the lightning (which is one kilometre high), will see the lightning in its full length in one indivisible instant. The sound will form itself also at the same instant all along the line of lightning, but the sound-waves will only reach the ear of the observer at different times. That which starts at point E, the nearest, will arrive in 3 seconds, sound travelling about 337 metres a second. That which is formed at the same moment at point D, 2000 yards from point O, will take double the time to arrive. That which comes from point C will not arrive for 12 seconds. The sound formed at B will not arrive until the time necessary to cover 8 kilometres—that is to say, not for 23 seconds—and the sound formed at A will only reach after 32 seconds. Thus the rolling will have lasted more than half a minute from start to finish.
DIAGRAM EXPLAINING THE DURATION OF THE SOUND OF THUNDER.DIAGRAM EXPLAINING THE DURATION OF THE SOUND OF THUNDER.
And if, which is very often the case, the astronomeris not exactly under one of the extremities of the lightning, but at some other point in its course, he first hears a clap, then an increased noise, then a diminution. In fact, in this case, the sound which leaves point D just overhead, which is 1000 metres off, arrives alone in 3 seconds, but the sounds formed from D to E on one side, and from C to D on the other, arrive at the same time, having joined each other, taking 9 seconds, which is the necessary time to come from 1000 to 3000 metres. The sounds beyond C arrive and depart according to distance, as in the preceding example, and the thunder has lasted 23 seconds instead of 32 seconds.
COMMENCEMENT, AUGMENTATION, AND DIMINUTION OF THE INTENSITY OF THUNDER.COMMENCEMENT, AUGMENTATION, AND DIMINUTION OF THE INTENSITY OF THUNDER.
I must add that lightning is never straight, but always crooked.
The length of time the thunder rolls has nothing to do with the distance of the cloud where the phenomenon begins. It is proportionate to the length of the lightning with which it is associated. The rolling is often still more prolonged by a succession of small discharges, which follow each other very rapidly betweenthe stormy clouds; by the zigzags and ramifications of the lightning caused by the hygrometrical diversity of the different beds of air; by the echoes repeated by the mountains, the earth, the water, and the clouds themselves—to all which must be added also the interferences caused by the encounter of the different systems of sound-waves.
Its duration is extremely variable, however; it rarely exceeds 30 seconds, though the noise may sometimes seem to last much longer, so that an observation of this kind may have any value—one must take into consideration the echo, and isolate a single clap from the series of discharges which take place in the bosom of the storm. The longest verified duration of a single discharge is 45 seconds. That is tremendous if we think of the instantaneousness of the lightning, and reflect that the flash and the sound are produced in reality at the same moment, that they are dependent the one on the other, and that in their various manifestations there is only the difference of motion.
Sound moves like a tortoise behind the swift lightning, whose vibrations spread in the air with inconceivable rapidity.
Hence these 45 seconds correspond to a flash of lightning more than 15 kilometres in length, but we know that there are even longer ones.
I have already said that we can calculate thedistance of the celestial cannon from which the fulminating discharge comes by counting the number of seconds which separate the apparition of the lightning from the first growls of the thunder. Thus the longest interval that has been proved between the appearance of the lightning and the noise it produces is 24 kilometres. This, however, is a maximum.
Numerous observations have proved that thunder is never heard beyond 20 or perhaps 25 kilometres. Lightning pierces the cloudy veil, but the voice of thunder does not carry so far. In this the great Jupiter shows himself inferior to the ingenuity of human pigmies, whose destructive and barbarous art has been able to invent infernal machines the noise of which can be heard much further.
Cannon can easily be heard at a distance of 40 kilometres. Sometimes, in sieges and big battles the cannonades can be heard muttering lugubriously more than 100 kilometres away.
During the siege of Paris, Krupp's cannon—that most expeditious of all vehicles of civilization in the eyes of the statesmen of this planet!—could be heard as far as Dieppe, 140 kilometres away, during the nights when they were bombarding. The cannonade of March 30, 1814, which crowned the First Empire, as it crowned the Second, was heard between Lisieux and Caen, a distance of 175 kilometres. Arago evenalleges that the cannon at Waterloo could be heard as far as Creil, which is 200 kilometres away. Thus man's thunder can be heard at a greater distance than that of nature. It is true that it is incomparably more vicious, and that it has a great many more victims.
In its natural state, if we might explain it thus—left to itself—it comes directly to us from the high regions of the atmosphere, and is the most terrible of aerial messengers—a subtle messenger, malicious and violent, it is the terror of the human race. But ruled by the genius of man, it becomes a powerful agent towards modern civilization, and we cannot sufficiently admire its many advantages.
If we could tame lightning and guide it safely, its services would probably become innumerable. Lightning as man's right hand! Why not? Was it not the auxiliary of the gods in the dark ages? To-day, is it not regarded by astronomers as one of the most important forces of nature? Why should it not be the collaborator of man's intelligence to-morrow?
Here we penetrate into what is, perhaps, the most mysterious, and certainly the least understood domain of thunder and lightning.
Among all the electrical phenomena to be observed in the atmosphere, there is nothing stranger than those fireballs of which we have already spoken, and which in form and size recall the electric lights in our Paris boulevards. Curious the contrast between electricity tamed and civilized and electricity running wild! Between the arc lights fulfilling their peaceful and useful function as substitutes for the sun, and these dread engines of destruction sowing death and havoc!
It is not long since the existence of these fireballs has been acknowledged by scientists as an actual fact. Until quite recent times they were regarded as the figment of excited imaginations, and wise men smiled at the wild stories of their ravages. Their reality has now been established, however, beyond the possibility of doubt.
In shape they are not always quite spherical, though this is their normal appearance; and although their contours are usually clearly defined, they are sometimes encircled by a kind of luminous vapour, such as we often see encircling the moon. Sometimes they are furnished with a red flame like a fuse that has been lit. Sometimes their course is simply that of a falling star. Sometimes they leave behind them a luminous trail which remains visible long after they themselves have disappeared. They have been described as looking like a crouching kitten, an iron bar, a large orange—so harmless apparently, that you were tempted to put out your hand to catch it. There is record of one being seen as large as a millstone.
One remarkable thing about them is the slowness with which they move, and which sometimes enables their course to be watched for several minutes. In our first chapter we gave several instances of the occurrence of fireballs. Let us look at some more. Here is one taken from Arago's learned treatise upon thunder. The record is from the pen of Batti, a marine painter in the service of the Empress of Austria and resident at Milan.
"In the month of June, 1841, I was staying at the Hôtel de l'Agnello in a room on the second floor, overlooking the Corso dei Servi. It was about six in the afternoon. The rain was coming down in torrents, andthe darkest rooms were lit up by the lightning flashes better than our rooms generally are by gas. Thunder broke out every now and again with appalling violence. The windows of the houses were closed, and the streets were deserted, for, as I have said, there was a steady downpour, and the main road was turned into a torrent. I was sitting quietly smoking, and looking out at the rain, which an occasional ray of sunlight set flashing like threads of gold, when I suddenly heard voices in the street calling out 'Guarda, guarda!'—'Look, look!' and at the same moment a clatter of hob-nailed boots. After half an hour of absolute silence, this noise attracted my attention. I ran to the window, and looking to the right, in the direction of the clamour, I saw a fireball making its way down the middle of the road on a level with my window, in a noticeably oblique direction, not horizontally. Eight or ten persons, continuing to call out 'Guarda, guarda!' kept pace with it, walking down the street, stepping out quickly. The meteor passed my window, and I had to turn to the left to see what would be the end of its caprice. After a moment, fearing to lose sight of it behind some houses which jutted out beyond my hotel, I went quickly downstairs and into the street, and was in time to see it again and to join those who were following its course. It was still going slowly, but it was now higher up, and was still ascending—somuch so that after a few minutes it hit the cross upon the clock tower of the Chiesa dei Servi and disappeared. Its disappearance was accompanied by a dull report like that of a big cannon twenty miles away when the wind carries the sound.
"To give an idea of the size and colour of this globe of fire, I can only compare it to the appearance of the moon as one may see it sometimes rising above the Alps on a clear night in winter, and as I myself have seen it at Innsbrück—that is to say, of a reddish yellow, with patches on it almost of red. The difference was that you could not see the contours of the meteor distinctly as you could the moon, and that it seemed to be enveloped in a luminous atmosphere of indefinite extent."
This fireball was an innocuous one. We may take next, by way of contrast, the case of one which wreaked terrible damage and loss of life.
On July 27, 1789, at about three o'clock in the afternoon, a fireball of about the size of a cannon-ball, fell in a great hall at Feltri (Marche Trevisane) in which six hundred people were seated, wounded seventy and killed ten, putting out all the lights.
On July 11, 1809, about eleven o'clock in the morning, a fireball penetrated into the church of Chateauneuf-les-Moustiers (Basses-Alpes) just as the bell was ringing and a large congregation had takentheir seats. Nine persons were killed on the spot and eighty-two others were wounded. All the dogs that had got into the church were killed. A woman who was in a hut on a neighbouring hill saw three fireballs descend that day, and made sure they would reduce the village to ashes.
Müsschenbroek recounts the following incident which took place at Solingen in 1711. M. Pyl, the Pastor at Duytsbourg, was preaching one Sunday, when in the middle of a storm a fireball fell into the church through the clock tower and exploded. The sanctuary was set on fire and became thick with smoke. Three persons were killed and more than a hundred were wounded.
From theBulletinof the Société Astronomique de France the following narrative contributed to it by Mlle. de Soubbotine, a member of this society, has been taken:—
"A terrible storm broke out at Ouralsk on May 22, 1901. It was afêteday and the streets were thronged with people. Towards five in the afternoon some young men and girls, twenty-one in all, had taken refuge in the vestibule of a house, and a girl of seventeen, Mlle. K., had sat down on the threshold, her back turned towards the street. Suddenly there was a violent clap of thunder, and in front of the door there appeared a dazzlingly brilliant ball of fire,gradually descending towards where they were all grouped. After touching Mlle. K.'s head, who bowed down at once, the fireball fell on the ground in the middle of the party, made a circuit of it, then forcing its way into the room of the master of the house, whose boots it touched and singed, it wreaked havoc with the apartment, broke through the wall into a stove in the adjoining room, smashed the stove-pipe, and carried it off with such violence that it was dashed against the opposite wall, and went out through the broken window.
"After the first feeling of fright, this is what transpired. The door near which Mlle. K. was seated had been thrown back into the court, and in the ceiling there were two holes of about 18 centimetres each.
"The young girl, still seated with her head bowed down, looked as though she were asleep. Some of the people were walking in the courtyard, having seen and heard nothing, and the others were all lying in the vestibule in a dead faint. Mlle. K. was dead. The fireball had struck her on the nape of her neck and had proceeded down her back and left hip, leaving a black mark all along. There was a sore on one hand, with some blood on it, and one of her shoes was torn completely off, and there was a small hole in one of the stockings.
"All the victims became deaf."
On September 10, 1845, at about two in the afternoon, in the course of a violent storm, a fireball came down the chimney into a room in a house in the village of Salagnac (Creuse). A child and three women who were in the room suffered no harm from it. Then it rolled into the middle of the kitchen, and passed near the feet of a young peasant who was standing in it. After which it went into an adjoining room, and disappeared without leaving any trace. The women tried to persuade the man to go in and see whether he could not stamp it out, but he had once allowed himself to be electrified in Paris, and thought it prudent to refrain. In a little stable hard by, it was found afterwards that the fireball had killed a pig. It had gone through the straw without setting fire to it.
On July 12, 1872, a new form of fireball made its appearance in the Commune of Hécourt (Oise). It was of the size of an egg, and it was seen burning upon a bed. Efforts were made in vain to extinguish it, and presently the entire house, together with the neighbouring dwellings and barns, became a prey to the flames.
On October 9, 1885, at 8.25 p.m., during a violent storm, a globe of fire of the size of a small apple was seen coming into a ground-floor room in a house atConstantinople through an open window, the family being at table in this room at the time. It first played round a gas-jet, then, moving towards the table, it passed between two guests, went round a lamp hanging over the centre of the table, and then precipitated itself into the street, where it exploded with an appalling crash, but without having caused any damage or hurt anybody. Not far from the scene of this phenomenon there are a number of buildings provided with lightning conductors. The fireball left no trace of smell behind it.
Here is another curious narrative of a fireball.
A party of five women took refuge during a storm in the entrance to a house in order to escape from the rain and the lightning.
They had scarcely gained the doorway when there was a tremendous thunderclap which sent them flying backward—and two girls who had joined them—knocked senseless by lightning in the form of a fireball. One of the girls remained unconscious for a long time; all the others were more or less seriously injured, but all recovered. The strangest circumstance in connection with this affair, however, still remains to be told.
SINGULAR CASE OF THREE FIREBALLS OBSERVED IN PARIS ON JUNE 10, 1905, BY M. H. RUDAUX. They were seen to descend in this way upon the lightning conductor above the Palais Royal electric-power station. This engraving, after a sketch made at the time by M. Rudaux, appeared in La Science Illustrée, for August, 1905.SINGULAR CASE OF THREE FIREBALLS OBSERVED IN PARIS ON JUNE 10, 1905, BY M. H. RUDAUX.They were seen to descend in this way upon the lightning conductor above the Palais Royal electric-power station. This engraving, after a sketch made at the time by M. Rudaux, appeared inLa Science Illustrée, for August, 1905.
On the same side of the street as the passage, in a neighbouring house, nine or ten yards away, in a ground-floor room of which the door was shut, a youngwoman was working at a sewing-machine. At the moment of the thunderclap, she experienced a violent shock throughout her whole body, and a fierce burning sensation in the hollow of her back. It was found afterwards that between the shoulder-blades and also on her leg, she had been badly scorched, but the wounds quickly healed. Now, in the room of this victim, no trace was to be found of the passing of the fireball, neither on the ceiling, nor on the floor, nor on the walls. There was absolutely nothing to show how the electric fluid could have made its way in from the spot in which the fireball had exploded in the neighbouring house, separated from it by two thick walls.
Mysterious, is it not? The fireball seems to dwindle out of sight. In some cases, it seems to reduce itself into vapour in order to pass from one place to another.
With animals these fireballs seem deadlier and more merciless than with human beings.
Thus, on February 16, 1866, a thunderstorm descended upon a farm in the Commune of Chapelle-Largeau (Deux-Sèvres), and the circumstances attending its explosion are too remarkable to be overlooked. After a tremendous thunderclap, a young man who was standing near the farm saw an immense fireball touch the ground at his feet, but it did him no damage,but passed, still harmlessly, through a room in the farmhouse in which there were nine persons. The only effect it produced was the flaring up of some matches upon the chimney-piece.
It proceeded towards the stables, which were divided into two compartments. In one there were two cows and two oxen: the first cow, to the right of the entrance, was killed, the second was uninjured; the first ox was killed, the second was uninjured.
The same effect was found to have been produced in the other compartment, in which there were four cows; the first and the third were killed, the second and fourth were spared: the odd numbers taken and the even numbers left.
Similar freaks have been recorded in connection with piles of plates struck by lightning—holes being found in alternate plates. How are these things to be explained?
The following story is very extraordinary, though it does not help to clear up the mystery of lightning's strange ways:—
On August 24, 1895, about ten in the morning, in the midst of a storm of wind and rain, several persons saw descending to the ground a whitish-coloured globe of about an inch and a half in diameter, which, on touching the ground, split into two smaller globes. These rose at once to the height of the chimneys on thehouses close by and disappeared. One went down a chimney, crossed a room in which were a man and a child, without harming them, and went through the floor, perforating a brick with a clean round hole of about the size of a franc. Under this room there was a sheepfold. The shepherd's son, seated at the doorway, suddenly saw a bright light shining over the flock of sheep, while the lambs were jumping about in alarm. When he went up to them, he was startled to discover that five sheep had been killed. They bore no trace of burning, or of wound of any kind, but about their lips was a sort of foam, slightly pink in colour.
In the adjoining house, the second fireball had also gone down a chimney, and had exploded in the kitchen, causing great damage.
In 1890, a young farmer was working on a plot of ground, two or three miles from Montfort-l'Amaury. A storm breaking out, he stood up against his horses to take refuge from the rain; moving away a few yards in order to get his whip, there was seen, when he returned, a ball of fire almost touching the ear of one of his horses. A moment later it exploded with a deafening noise. The two horses fell—one of them unable to get up again. The farmer himself was dashed to pieces.
On other occasions the meteor is hardly more devastating than the ordinary bomb.
On April 21, at Lanxade, near Bergerac, a stormhad been raging already for some hours, when suddenly—simultaneously with a small thunderclap—a ball of fire, of the size of the opening of a sack of corn, fell slowly on one of the banks of the Dordogne, spoiling some fruit trees, and then crossing the river, it raised a waterspout several yards high as it went.
It disappeared finally on the other side of a field of corn.
On November 12, 1887, a very curious instance of a fireball was noticed on the Atlantic.
It was at midnight, near Cape Race. An enormous fireball was seen to rise slowly out of the sea to the height of sixteen or seventeen metres. It travelled against the wind, and came quite near the vessel from which it was being watched. Then it turned towards the south-east and disappeared. The apparition lasted about five minutes.
In July, 1902, in the course of a violent storm, and immediately after a loud peal of thunder, a fireball of about the size of a toy balloon was seen to make its appearance suddenly in the Rue Veron at Montmartre. After moving along, just above the ground, in front of a wine-merchant's shop, it exploded like a bomb, most fortunately without hurting any one, or doing any damage.
The little village of Candes, situated by the confluence of the Vienne and the Loire, was the scene ofthe appearance of a fireball in June, 1897. Three persons were sitting in the verandah of a house during a storm, when they suddenly saw a fireball travelling past them through the air for a distance of thirty yards or so. Then it exploded with a loud noise, striking sparks from the ironworks of the verandah. At the same moment, the servants saw another fireball cross a garden at the other side of the house, and drop into a small pond. A gardener was knocked over, but not hurt.
On March 6, 1894, M. Dandois, professor of surgery at the University of Louvain, went to the neighbouring town of Linden, by railway, to see a patient. On his return, on foot, the sky suddenly so darkened over, that he made for the nearest dwelling-place, avoiding, as he did so, the telegraph poles along the road. Suddenly a ball of fire came against him and threw him over a ditch into a field, where he lay unconscious.
A quarter of an hour later, having regained his senses and finding himself undamaged save for a numbness in one arm and one leg, the doctor set out again, congratulating himself on the fact that his umbrella had acted as a sort of portable lightning conductor, for the steels were all twisted, and showed signs of having borne the brunt of the fray. Had the handle been of steel also, the electric current wouldhave run down it into his hand, doubtless, and killed him.
On another occasion a fireball fell upon the door of a house, pushed it violently open, and made its way into the kitchen.
At the sight of this strange visitor, the cook bolted from the room. A sempstress, who was at work near the window, received a small burn on her forehead, of about the size of half a franc, with a slight weal a couple of inches long—like the tail of a comet.
After bursting, the fireball made its way up the chimney, from which it removed a mass of soot, smelling somewhat of sulphur.
Here is an instance more curious still—
A violent storm was raging near Marseilles, when seven persons, seated together in the ground-floor drawing-room of a country house, saw a fireball as big as a plate appear in their midst.
It directed its course towards a young girl of eighteen, who, frightened out of her life, had fallen on her knees. Touching her shoes, it rebounded to the ceiling, then came down to her feet again, and so on two or three times, with mysterious regularity, the girl experiencing, it seems, no other sensation than that of a slight cramp in her legs. Eventually the fireball made its exit from the room through a keyhole!
The girl could not get up at once after it had gone. For a fortnight or so she could not walk without assistance, and it was two years before she got over a liability to sudden weakness in her legs, causing her suddenly to fall.
It is strange to reflect that these diminutive fireballs, produced by the actual atmosphere we breathe, are less understood by us than that enormous globe which we call the sun, and to which is due the flowering of the entire life of our planet. If we are still in doubt as to the nature of the sun's spots, at least we have been able to analyse its own elements. And we know its dimensions, its weight, its distance from us, its rate of rotation, etc., etc.
Yet these electric spheres that make their escape from the clouds in times of storm, baffle our investigations altogether.
According to records which seem authentic, fireballs have been seen actually to come into existence upon the surface of a ceiling, at the mouth of a well, and upon the flagstones of a church.
In 1713, at the château of Fosdinaro, in the neighbourhood of Massa Carrara, in the course of a storm and heavy downpour of rain, there was seen to appear suddenly upon the ground a very vivid flame, white and blue in colour. It seemed to flare fiercely, but did not move apparently from the one spot, and after growingquickly in volume it suddenly disappeared. Simultaneously with its going, one of the observers felt a curious sort of tickling behind his shoulder, moving upwards; several bits of plaster from the ceiling under which he stood fell upon his head, and there was a sudden crash quite unlike an ordinary thunderclap.
In 1750, on the 2nd of July, at about three in the afternoon, the Abbé Richard happened to be in the church of St. Michel at Dijon during a storm. "Suddenly," he tells us, "I saw between two pillars of the nave a bright red flame floating in the air about three feet above the floor. Presently it rose to a height of twelve or fifteen feet, increasing in volume. Then, after having moved some yards to one side, while still rising diagonally to the height almost of the woodwork of the organ, it disappeared at last with an explosion like the report of a cannon."
On July 21, 1745, a violent storm broke out in Boulogne, and the tower of a convent was struck by a fireball. It was of great size, and was seen to emerge from one of the sewers of the town and to move along the surface of the road until it hit against this tower, of which a part subsided. No one was hurt. A nun affirmed that some years before she had seen just such another fireball emerge from the same spot and precipitate itself with a crash against the summit of the tower without doing any damage.
In the middle of a violent storm, Dr. Gardons saw several fireballs flying in different directions, not far from the ground, making a crackling sort of noise. One of them was seen by witnesses to come out of an excavation full of stagnant water. They killed one man, several animals, and did much damage to the trees and houses in the vicinity.
In February, 1767, at Presbourg, a blue, conical flame escaped suddenly with a detonating noise from a brasier, breaking it to pieces, and scattering the glowing cinders all around. It then went twisting about the room, burnt the face and hands of a child, escaped partly through the window, partly through the door, broke into a thousand pieces a second brasier in another room, and disappeared finally up a chimney, carrying up with it and discharging from the chimney-top into the street several hams which had been hung under the chimney-piece. For several days afterwards the atmosphere of the house retained a smell of sulphur.
In some cases, fireballs have been seen to come down from the sky apparently, and then, after almost reaching but not actually touching the ground, to ascend again. Thus on a hot day in summer 1837, M. Hapoule, a landed proprietor in the department of the Moselle, standing in front of the entrance to his stables under the shelter of a porch during a storm,saw a fireball about the size of an orange moving in the direction of a dung-heap not far from him. But instead of going right into it, it stopped about a yard off, and changing its route, it went off at an angle, keeping the same level for some distance, when it suddenly seemed to change its mind again, and rose perpendicularly till it disappeared in the clouds.
These sudden changes, as we have seen, are strangely characteristic of the habits of fireballs.
The Garde Champêtre of the village of Lalande de Libourne (Gironde) was traversing the country one evening about half-past ten, engaged in organizing agarde de surveillance, when he suddenly found himself surrounded by a bright and penetrating light. Astonished, he looked behind him, and saw a fireball, just broken loose from a cloud, descending quickly to the ground.
The light vanished presently, but he made his way towards where the fireball seemed to be falling. When he had gone about two hundred yards, he saw another brilliant light breaking out from the top of a tree and spreading itself into a sheaf of rays, every point of which seemed to emit electric sparks.
At the end of a quarter of an hour the light became weaker, and then disappeared. The tree was afterwards cut down, and it was found that the lightning had gone down the centre to a distance of three yards, and hadthen passed down outside to the soil, leaving trace of a semi-circular route; and finally, after rising again on the opposite side of the tree to a height of four yards, tearing off two narrow strips of bark, had disappeared. At the foot of the tree a small hole, about an inch and a quarter in diameter, retained a certain degree of warmth for an hour and a half afterwards.
Fireballs often keep within the frontiers of cloud-land. They may be seen passing sometimes from one cloud to another in the high regions of the atmosphere.
On September 22, 1813, at seven in the evening, M. Louis Ordinaire saw a fireball leave a cloud at the zenith—the sky being very much lowering at the time—and go towards another. It was of a reddish-yellow and extremely brilliant, lighting up the ground with a bright radiance.
He was able to follow its movements for at least a minute, and then saw it disappear into the second cloud. There was an explosion followed by a dull sound like the firing off of a cannon in the distance.
After a violent storm which broke out near Wakefield on March 1, 1774, there remained only two clouds in the sky, just above the horizon. Balls of fire were observed gliding from the higher of the two into the lower, like falling stars.
In high mountainous districts—in the Alps, for instance—you may often look down from above upona storm. It is fascinating thus to watch the grandiose spectacle of the elements at war. Here from the pen of Père Lozeran du Fesch is a striking picture of such a scene—
"It was on the 2nd of September, 1716, about three o'clock in the afternoon. A traveller was making his way down towards Vic from the summit of Cantal, accompanied by a guide.
"The weather was calm and very warm, but down below, about the middle of the mountain, a vast sea of mist stretched out in wavelike clouds.
"These clouds were furrowed continually by lightning flashes, some going quite straight, some zigzag, some taking the shape of fireballs. When the two men came near this region of clouds, the mist grew so thick they could hardly see the bridles of their horses.
"The air became gradually more cold and the darkness more dense as they proceeded downwards. Now they were in the midst of the fireballs flying in every direction all round them, revolving as they went, reddish in colour, like saffron lit up.
"They were of all sizes—some quite small on their first appearance, seeming to grow immensely in volume in a few moments. Drops of rain fell when they passed. Up to this point the sight had been curious but not terrifying, but suddenly now, one of these fireballs, about two feet in diameter, burst open nearthe traveller and emitted streams of a bright and beautiful light in every direction, and there was a dull report followed by a tremendous crash. The two men were much shaken and the air all round them seemed polluted. After a minute or two, however, all trace of the explosion had been dissipated, and they proceeded on their way."
On January 6, 1850, near Merlan, about six in the afternoon, a fireball burst above the heads of two men, enveloping them in a bluish light, without hurting them or even damaging their clothes, but giving them a momentary thrill as from an electric battery. It left no traces of any kind, not even a smell.
Mr. G. M. Ryan records an instance which he witnessed at Karachi in Scinde. While in his drawing-room one day with two friends who were taking refuge from a storm, he rose from his chair and went to the door to open it, the windows as well as the door being shut at the time. Returning, he saw in the air and between his friends, a ball of fire of about the size of a full moon. At the same time there was a terrible clap of thunder. Two of the spectators were slightly wounded; one felt a sharp pain on the left side of the face, the other, a sensation in one arm with a feeling as if his hair were burning. There was a strong smell of sulphur. In the next room there were two rifles in acase; one was intact but the other was broken, and there was a hole in the wall at the point where the muzzle leant against it, and there were two holes in the same wall a story higher.
On Sunday, August 19, 1900, several people were assembled in a room in the château of the Baron de France at Maintenay (Pas-de-Calais), when there was a violent storm raging over the country.
Suddenly there appeared in the midst of the eleven people who were there, a globe of blue fire about the size of an infant's head, which quietly crossed the room, touching four people on its way. None of them were injured. An awful explosion was heard at the moment when the electric ball disappeared through an open door in front of the great staircase.
On August 3, 1809, a fireball struck the house of a Mr. David Sutton, not far from Newcastle-on-Tyne. Eight people were having tea in the drawing-room when a violent clap of thunder knocked down the chimney.
Immediately after they saw on the ground, at the door opposite the fireplace, the brilliant visitor which announced itself in the sonorous voice of Jupiter the thunderer. It remained discreetly at the entrance of the room, no doubt waiting for the sign to advance. No one making a move, it came into the middle of theroom, and there burst with a crash, throwing out fiery grains like aeroliths.
The spectacle must have been magnificent—but, we must acknowledge, rather disquieting.
On September 27, 1772, at Besançon, a voluminous fireball crossed over a corn-shop and the ward of a hospital full of nurses and children. This time again the lightning was merciful—it spared nurses and children, and went and drowned itself in the Doubs.
Nearly thirty years before, in July, 1744, it showed the same regard for an honest German peasant woman. She was occupied in the kitchen superintending the family meal, when, after a terrible clap of thunder, she saw a fireball the size of a fist come down the chimney, pass between her feet without hurting her, and continue on its course without burning or even upsetting the spinning-wheel and other objects on the floor.
Much frightened, the young woman tried to escape; she threw herself towards the door and opened it, when the fireball at once followed her, played about her feet, went into the next room, which opened out-of-doors, crossed it, and through the door into the yard.
It went round the yard, entered a barn by an open door, climbed the wall opposite, and reaching the edge of the roof, burst with such a terrific noise that thepeasant woman fainted. The barn at once took fire and was reduced to cinders.
Towards the middle of the last century, March 3, 1835, the steeple of Crailsheim was set on fire by lightning. The guardian's daughter, aged twenty years, was at this moment in her room and had her back turned to the window, when her young brother saw a fireball enter by the window-sill and descend on to his sister's back, giving her a sudden shock all over her body. The young girl then saw at her feet a quantity of small flames, which went towards the kitchen, the door of which had been opened, and set fire to a pile of mossy wood. There was no further damage than this attempt at incendiarism, which was easily extinguished.
Occasionally a fireball seems to take a malignant pleasure in hurling itself like a fury against lightning conductors; but instead of quietly impaling itself like the linear lightning, and breathing its last sigh in a prolonged roar, it struggles, and comes forth victorious from this curious contest.
There are many cases of fireballs playing about the lightning conductors without being caught.
In 1777, a fireball shot from the clouds on to the point of the lightning conductor on the Observatory of Padua. The conductor, which consisted of an iron chain, was broken at its junction with the stem. However, it sent on the discharge.
Some years later, in 1792, a huge ball of lightning struck one of the two conductors on the house of M. Haller at Villiers la Garenne. This conductor was much injured by the audacious assailant, and so was the framework of the house; the keen fluid had damaged the metallic gutters.
At this point I must add that lightning conductors are of recent creation. Nor would it be surprising if there were defective ones which could not assure an efficient protection.
However, much later, on December 20, 1845, the same phenomenon was observed at the château of Bortyvon, near Vire. There, again, the fireball, ignoring the danger to which it was exposing itself, flung itself on a lightning conductor placed in the centre of the château. It was spared, but the château suffered greatly. The electric ball descended from both sides of the metallic stem, causing a great deal of damage along its path. On touching the ground it expanded, and many persons affirm that they saw what was like a huge cask of fire rolling along the ground.
In truth, ball lightning seems in a certain measure to escape the influence of lightning conductors.
On September 4, 1903, towards ten o'clock in the evening, M. Laurence Rotch, director of the Observatory of Blue Hill (U.S.), happening to be inParis, made the following curious observation from the Rond-point of the Champs Elysées.
Looking in the direction of the Eiffel Tower, he saw the summit of the edifice struck by white lightning coming from the zenith. At the same moment a fireball, less dazzling than the lightning, slowly descended from the summit to the second platform. It appeared to be about one yard in diameter, and to be situated in the middle of the tower, taking less than two seconds to cover a distance of about 100 yards. Then it disappeared. The next day the observer ascertained, on visiting the tower, that it had actually been struck by lightning twice on the previous day.
It is to be noted that the meteor did not follow the conductor; but, after all, is not the whole tower itself the most powerful conductor imaginable? Would not the enormous masses of iron used in its construction neutralize the attraction of the thin metallic rods, effectual for the protection of ordinary buildings, but incapable, one would think, of competing with the attractive force of this immense metallic framework?
Here are some cases where globular lightning has struck bells or telegraph wires, which it has followed with docility.
Several times it has been seen poised like a bird on a telegraph wire near a railway-station, and has then quietly disappeared.