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THUNDER AND LIGHTNING
* * * * *
Medium 8vo, cloth extra, 10_s._ 6_d._
FLAMMARION'S POPULAR ASTRONOMY
Translated from the French by J. ELLARD GORE, F.R.A.S.
With 3 Plates and 288 Illustrations.
"The six books into which the book is divided give a very
lucid and accurate description of the knowledge which has
been acquired of the moving bodies of space, both as respects
their motions and physical constitutions. Of the translation
we can only speak in terms of praise. Not only does it well
represent the original, but Mr. Gore has added useful notes
for the purpose of bringing the information up to date, and
has also increased the number--already very considerable--of
the excellent illustrations, so that the work is likely to
become as popular in England as it has been in
France."--ATHENÆUM.
"The work which Mr. J. E. Gore has translated into English
has made for itself a name and reputation in France ... and
has gone into general circulation to the number of a hundred
thousand copies. This last fact is proof how well within the
bounds of possibility it is to make the latest discoveries of
science comprehensible and fascinating to the common mind. M.
Flammarion has attained this triumph through the grasp of his
knowledge, the lucidity of his style, and his power of
bringing home the most stupendous and complicated of the
things revealed to us in the depths of space. M. Flammarion's
pages should find almost as great acceptance in this country
as in his own. Simplicity of arrangement and of statement are
part of his charm and of his success."--SCOTSMAN.
"M. Flammarion's latest volume, if it does not displace its
English rivals, may well take a high place in the rank to
which they belong. It is full, lucid, and, thanks to Mr.
Gore's careful revision, well up to date.... Mr. Gore's
edition is so carefully brought abreast of the latest
discoveries that the English student may now congratulate
himself on being in an even better position than the
countrymen of M. Flammarion."--DAILY CHRONICLE.
"Young students of astronomy who wish to obtain a general
idea of the most wonderful and fascinating of all sciences
will find precisely what they seek in M. Flammarion's
eloquent and poetic chapters.... There are many illustrations
in this able and attractive treatise."--SPEAKER.
"It is a fascinating work, extending to nearly seven hundred
pages, and dealing in popular language with some of the most
interesting of the discoveries and speculations of
astronomers."--DAILY NEWS.
"M. Flammarion is a sound practical astronomer; he has
rendered good and laborious service to the science, and he
possesses a valuable faculty of popular exposition.... The
volume is profusely and well illustrated, some of the best
plates making here their first appearance."--SATURDAY REVIEW.
"A high place must be accorded to Flammarion's 'Popular
Astronomy.' Never before has the science of the heavens been
treated with such fulness and interest as in this fascinating
book; for Flammarion is a man of letters as well as a man of
science--a man of letters, too, endowed with the wondrous
gifts of lucidity and charm which distinguish the best French
writers.... Flammarion's book is much more absorbing than
most novels, more romantic than most romances, more poetic
than most poems, yet strictly and scientifically
accurate."--LUDGATE MONTHLY.
"It must be confessed that M. Flammarion not only arrests the
attention, but assists the reader to grasp astronomical
theories--a task in which less popular writers often fail
when they make the attempt."--LITERARY WORLD.
"The book is a most fascinating one, and holds the reader
from start to finish.... As a manual for those who wish to
obtain a good general knowledge of astronomy this work will
be found unsurpassed."--SCIENCE GOSSIP.
LONDON: CHATTO & WINDUS, 111 ST. MARTIN'S LANE, W.C.
* * * * *
THUNDER AND LIGHTNING
by
CAMILLE FLAMMARION
Translated by Walter Mostyn
[Illustration]
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
London
Chatto & Windus
1905
Printed by
William Clowes and Sons, Limited,
London and Beccles.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE VICTIMS OF LIGHTNING 1
II. ATMOSPHERIC ELECTRICITY AND STORM-CLOUDS 17
III. THE FLASH AND THE SOUND 31
IV. FIREBALLS 57
V. THE EFFECTS OF LIGHTNING ON MANKIND 89
VI. THE EFFECTS OF LIGHTNING ON ANIMALS 128
VII. THE EFFECTS OF LIGHTNING ON TREES AND PLANTS 155
VIII. THE EFFECTS OF LIGHTNING ON METALS, OBJECTS,
HOUSES, ETC. 188
IX. LIGHTNING CONDUCTORS 240
X. PICTURES MADE BY LIGHTNING 249
THUNDER AND LIGHTNING
CHAPTER I
THE VICTIMS OF LIGHTNING
It would be an interesting thing to make a careful study once a year,
towards the end of the summer, of the habits and customs of thunder
and lightning. Perhaps in this way we should succeed one day in
determining the still mysterious nature of these elusive forces. I,
for my part, have been engaged upon the task for many years past. It
has produced a big accumulation of records, and in this volume I can
find room but for a _résumé_ of them, as varied as possible. In my
first chapter I shall present a few characteristic examples, just to
give my readers some hint of this variety.
Not to go too far back, let us begin with a harmless--I might almost
say playful--fireball performance, of which M. Schnaufer, Professor at
Marseilles, has given me the particulars.
In October, 1898, the fireball in question made its appearance in a
room and advanced towards a young girl who was seated at the table,
her feet hanging down without touching the floor. The luminous globe
moved along the floor in the girl's direction, began to rise quite
near her and then round and round her, spiral fashion, darted off
towards a hole in the chimney--a hole made for the stove-pipe, and
closed up with glued paper--made its way up the chimney, and, on
emerging into the open air, gave out upon the roof an appalling crash
which shook the entire house. It was a case of coming in like a lamb
and going out like a lion!
A similar occurrence is recorded as having been observed in Paris, on
July 5, 1852, in a tailor's room, including the same curious detail of
the departure through the hole in the chimney, closed up with paper.
It was in the Rue Saint Jacques, near the Val de Grâce. The fireball
burst into the room from the chimney, knocking over the paper guard in
front of the fireplace. In appearance it suggested a young cat,
gathered up into a ball, as it were, and moving along without using
its paws. It approached the tailor's legs as though to play with them.
The tailor moved them away to avoid the contact, of which he naturally
was in terror. After some seconds, the globe of fire rose vertically
to the height of the man's face as he sat, and he, to save himself,
leaned quickly back and fell over. The fireball continued to rise,
and made its way towards a hole which had been made at the top of the
chimney for the insertion of a stove-pipe in the winter, but which, as
the tailor put it afterwards, "the fireball couldn't see," because it
was closed up with paper. The ball stripped off the paper neatly,
entered the chimney quite quietly, and having risen to the summit,
produced a tremendous explosion, which sent the chimney-top flying,
and scattered it in bits all over the neighbouring courtyard and
surrounding roofs.
There we have a unique occurrence, recorded for us by Babinet and
Arago, and of which I have given here the exact particulars. In both
these cases we have to note the attraction of the hole in the chimney
and the explosion of the thunderbolt on getting to the top. But it is
not easy to detect the law underlying these phenomena.
In one of the latest volumes of the Association Française a somewhat
similar case is dealt with.
"A violent storm," says the writer, M. Wander, "had descended upon the
commune of Beugnon (Deux-Sèvres). I happened to be passing through a
farm, in which were two children of about twelve and thirteen. These
children were taking refuge from the rain under the door of a stable,
in which were twenty-five oxen. In front of them extended a
courtyard, sloping downwards towards a large pond, twenty or thirty
yards away, beside which grew a poplar-tree. Suddenly there appeared a
globe of fire, of the size of an apple, near the top of the poplar. We
saw it descend, branch by branch, and then down the trunk. It moved
along the courtyard _very slowly_, seeming almost to pick its way
between the pools of water, and came up to the door where stood the
children. One of them was bold enough to touch it with his foot.
Immediately a terrible crash shook the entire farm to its foundations,
the two children were thrown to the ground uninjured, but eleven of
the animals in the stable were killed!"
Who is to explain these anomalies? The child who touched the fireball
escapes with a fright, and a few feet behind him eleven animals out of
twenty-five perish on the spot!
During the storm which broke out at the town of Gray, on July 7, 1886,
my friend M. Vannesson, President of the Tribunal, saw a fireball of
from thirty to forty centimetres in diameter, which exploded on the
corner of a roof, cutting clean off the end portion of the central
beam to the length of about half a yard (like a bundle of matches, but
without setting it on fire), scattering the splinters over the upper
story and loosening the plaster upon the walls below. It then
_rebounded_ on the roofing of a little outside staircase, made a hole
in it, smashing and sending flying the slates, came down upon the
road, and rolling right in the midst of some passers-by--who, like the
child in the farm, escaped with a fright--disappeared.
My learned fellow-member of the Astronomical Society of France, Dr.
Bougon, has discovered an account of one of the most remarkable
fireballs ever recorded in _La Gloire des Confesseurs_, a work written
by Gregory of Tours, the twentieth bishop of that town.
On the dedication day of an oratory which he had constructed in one of
the outer buildings of the episcopal palace, all the participants in
the procession from the cathedral, while approaching the oratory with
the sacred relics and singing the litanies, saw a globe of fire, so
intensely brilliant that their eyes were dazzled, and they could
scarcely keep them open. Seized with terror, priests, deacons,
sub-deacons, choristers, together with the distinguished citizens of
the town, who were carrying the relics upon their shoulders, all with
one accord threw themselves on the ground, face downward. Then
Gregory, remembering that on the occasion of the death of St. Martin,
some of whose bones were among the relics being carried from the
cathedral, a globe of fire was said to have been observed to leave the
saint's head and ascend heavenwards, believed himself to be in the
presence of a miracle, vouchsafed as evidence at once of St. Martin's
sanctity and the genuineness of his relics. This globe of fire did no
damage and burnt nothing. _Discurrebat autem per totam cellulam_,
TANQUAM FULGUR, _globus igneus_.
There is to be seen at the Louvre a picture by Eustache Lesueur,
entitled "La Messe de Saint Martin," which seemed to me at first to
illustrate this narrative, but the spectators are shown in silent
wonder instead of being prostrated as in the story. Moreover, Gregory
of Tours tells us in his life of St. Martin, that one day during Mass
a globe of fire was seen to appear above the head of the bishop, and
then to rise heavenwards, to the great edification of the devout. It
was this "miracle," evidently, that Lesueur intended to represent.
Here is another case of a remarkably harmless fireball which is often
cited.
The Abbé Spallanzani it is who tells the story. On August 29, 1791, a
young peasant woman was in a field during a storm, when suddenly there
appeared at her feet a globe of fire of about the size of a billiard
ball. Slipping along the ground, this little fireball reached her
feet, caressed them, as it were, made its way up under her clothes,
and issued again from the middle of her bodice, and, still keeping its
globular form, darted off into the air and exploded noisily. When it
got under her petticoats, they blew out like an umbrella, and she fell
back. Two witnesses of the scene ran to her assistance, but she was
unhurt. A medical examination revealed only a slight erosion of the
skin, extending from the right knee to the middle of her breast; her
chemise had been torn in two along the same line, and there was a hole
through her bodice where the thunderbolt had got out.
In the "Memoirs of Du Bellay" the following very curious narrative is
to be found. In all probability it is a fireball that is in
question:--
"On March 3, 1557, Diane of France, illegitimate daughter of Henri
II., then the Dauphin, married François de Montmorency. On the night
of their wedding, an oscillating flame came into their bedroom through
the window, went from corner to corner, and finally to the nuptial
bed, where it burnt Diane's hair and night attire. It did them no
other harm, but their terror can be imagined."
Perhaps it may be as well to take with a pinch of salt the statement
that the lady's attire was burnt in this way without harm to her
person, yet there are other authentic stories of a similar kind almost
as curious.
In 1897, at Linguy (Eure-et-Loire), a man and his wife were sleeping
quietly, when suddenly a terrible crash made them jump out of bed.
They thought their last hour had come. The chimney, broken to pieces,
had fallen in and its wreckage filled the room, the gable-end was put
out and the roof threatened to come down. The effects of the
thunderbolt in the room itself were less alarming than its effects
outside, but were very curious. For instance, bricks from one wall had
been dashed horizontally against the wall opposite, with such
extraordinary force that they were to be seen imbedded in it up above
a dresser upon which pots and pans, etc., were ranged, and within a
few inches of the ceiling, while the windows of the room had been
smashed into bits, and a looking-glass, detached from the wall, stood
on end whole and entire upon the floor, delicately balanced. A chair
near the bed, upon which articles of clothing had been placed, had
been spirited away to a spot near the door. A small lamp and a box of
matches were to be found undamaged upon the floor. An old gun,
suspended from a beam, was violently shaken and had lost its ramrod.
The thunderbolt actually frolicked over the bed, leaving its occupants
more dead than alive from terror but quite unhurt. It passed within a
few inches of their heads and passed through a fissure in a partition
into an adjoining dairy, where it carried a whole row of milk-cans,
full of milk, from one side of the room to another, breaking the lids
but not upsetting a single can. It broke four plates out of a pile of
a dozen, leaving the remaining eight intact. It carried away the tap
from a small barrel of wine, which emptied itself in consequence.
It ended by passing out through the window without further breakage,
leaving the husband and wife unscathed but panic-stricken.
One of the strangest tricks to which lightning is addicted is that of
undressing its victims. It displays much more skill and cleverness in
such diversions than is to be found in animals or even in many human
beings.
Here is one of the most curious instances of this on record, as
narrated by Morand:--
"A woman in man's costume. A storm suddenly comes on. A flash of
lightning strikes her, carries off and destroys her clothes and boots.
She is left stark naked, and she has to be wrapped up in a cloth and
taken thus to the neighbouring village."
In 1898, at Courcelles-les-Sens, Mlles. Philomène Escalbert, aged 19,
Adèle Delauffre, aged 22, and Madame Léonie Legère, aged 44, were
standing round a reaping-machine, when a flash of lightning struck
Madame Legère and killed her on the spot. The two young girls were
stripped to the skin, even their boots being torn from their feet.
Otherwise they were left safe and sound--and astonished.
On October 1, 1868, seven persons took refuge during a storm under a
huge ash-tree near the village of Bonello, in the Commune of Perret
(Côtes-du-Nord), when suddenly the tree was struck by lightning, and
one of them--a woman--was killed. The six others were knocked to the
ground without being seriously damaged. The clothes of the woman who
had been killed were torn into shreds, many of which were found
clinging to the branches of the tree.
On May 11, 1869, a farmer at Ardillats was tilling the ground with his
two oxen, not far from his dwelling-place, about four in the
afternoon. The air was close and heavy, and the sky covered with black
clouds. Suddenly there was a great thunderclap, and a flash of
lightning struck both man and beasts dead on the spot. The man was
found stripped to the skin, and his boots had been carried thirty
yards away.
In July, 1896, at Epervans (Saône-et-Loire), a young man named Petiot,
who was mowing in a meadow, was struck dead by lightning while
lighting a cigarette, and left in a state of complete nakedness.
On August 11, 1855, a man was struck by lightning near Vallerois
(Haute-Saône), and stripped naked. All that could be found afterwards
of his clothes was a shirt-sleeve, a few other shreds, and some pieces
of his hobnailed boots. Ten minutes after he was struck he regained
consciousness, opened his eyes, complained of the cold, and inquired
how he happened to be naked.
There is no telling what lightning will not do.
Sometimes it will snatch things out of your hand and carry them right
away.
There is a case of a mug being thus spirited away from a man, who had
just been drinking out of it, and deposited undamaged in a courtyard
near--the man himself suffering no injury. A youth of eighteen,
holding up a missal from which he is singing, has it torn out of his
hands and destroyed. A whip is whisked out of a rider's hand. Two
ladies, quietly knitting, have their knitting-needles stolen. A girl
was sitting at her sewing-machine, a pair of scissors in her hand; a
flash of lightning, and her scissors are gone and she is sitting _on_
the sewing-machine. A farmer's labourer is carrying a pitchfork on his
shoulder; the lightning seizes it, carries it off fifty yards or so,
and twists its two prongs into corkscrews.
On July 22, 1878, at Gien (Nievre), a woman while sprinkling her house
with holy water during a storm, saw her holy-water bottle smashed
actually in her fingers by the lightning, which at the same time
smashed up the tiled pavement of the room.
In a church at Dancé (Loire) during vespers, one day in June, 1866, a
flash of lightning killed the priest and all the congregation, knocked
over the monstrance on the altar, and buried the Host in a heap of
_débris_.
On June 28, 1885, the cupola of the Javisy Observatory, which was not
then provided with a lightning conductor, was struck by lightning. An
enormous piece of oak from _un angle de construction_ was torn to
shreds, and one splinter was lodged in the hinge of a window behind
the _pivot_, in the part between the _pivot_ and the frame, hardly a
twenty-fifth of an inch apart, and this without breaking the glass.
In other cases lightning has been known to split men in two, almost as
with a huge axe. On January 20, 1868, this happened to a miller's
assistant in a windmill at Groix. The lightning struck him, and split
him from his head downwards in two.
In the course of July, 1844, four inhabitants of Heiltz-le-Maurupt,
near Vitry-le-Françoise, took refuge under trees during a storm, three
of them under a poplar, and the fourth under a willow, against which
doubtless he leaned. In a few minutes this one was struck by
lightning. A bright flame was observed to be issuing from his clothes,
but he remained standing, and seemed unconscious of what had happened.
"You're on fire! You're on fire!" exclaimed his friends. Getting no
reply, they went up to where he was, and found to their horror that he
was a corpse.
A clergyman named Butler was a witness of the following incident,
which took place at Everdon. Ten harvest-men took refuge under a lodge
on the approach of a storm. There was a thunderclap, and in a moment
four of them were killed by lightning. One of them was found dead,
still holding between finger and thumb a pinch of snuff he had been in
the act of taking. A second had one hand upon the head of a small dog,
also killed, and still sitting upon his knees, and in the other hand a
piece of bread; a third was sitting, his eyes open, facing in the
direction from which the storm came.
At Castellane, in August, 1898, during a violent storm, a flock of
sheep was struck by lightning while crossing the mountain of Peyresy.
Seventy-five of them were killed. The shepherd escaped. The sheep
probably were all wet from the rain, and clinging together in one
great mass. In the same month a pond at Vauxdîmes (Côte-d'Or) was
demolished, and all the fish in it killed.
Quite recently, a young man at Franxault (Côte-d'Or) was killed by
lightning on his way home from work. All the nails were found to have
been torn out of his shoes, and the links of his silver watch-chain
were all moulded together. To fuse silver in this way a heat of 957
degrees is needed!
On July 5, 1883, at Buffon (Côte-d'Or), a woman had one of her
earrings melted in the same way, but she was not killed. On the same
day at Void (Meuse) two workmen, who had taken shelter under a willow,
were thrown a distance of four yards without being killed.
On August 10, of the same year, at Chanvres (Yonne), a vine-dresser
was struck by lightning and killed, but his heart continued to beat
for thirty hours.
Dr. Gaultier de Claubry was struck by lightning, with the
extraordinary result that his beard was taken off him, roots and all,
so that it never grew again.
At Fresneaux (Oise), a young girl of twenty, Mlle. Laure Leloup, had
her head shorn by lightning. A wide furrow was to be traced on the
crown of her head, caused by the electric fluid. Her hair was removed
right down to the skin as though by a razor.
On September 4, 1898, a flash of lightning lit up all the electric
lamps in the Prefecture of Lyon.
Really it is extraordinary the queer things lightning will do! Death
in one case, an innocent practical joke in another! I have hundreds of
quaint records before me. Impossible to deduce any kind of law from
them all. You are tempted to believe that the electric current has a
brain.
A young woman was picking cherries off a rather tall cherry-tree. A
young man stood underneath. The young woman was struck by lightning,
and fell dead. This was in July, 1885.
In September, 1898, at Remaines, near Ramerupt (Aube), a certain M.
Finot, an innkeeper, was standing on his doorstep looking out at a
storm, when a flash of lightning followed by a thunderclap sent him
flying back into the hall. He remained unconscious for a time, and
his sight was affected for ten hours. The extraordinary thing,
however, in his case was that he had been a victim of rheumatism until
then, and walked with difficulty and only with a stick, and that ever
since this occurrence he has been able to do without the stick, and to
pursue his avocations quite comfortably. He feels that he has no
reason to regret his experience, though he is not anxious to go
through anything of the kind again. This kind of electrical phenomenon
might be catalogued under the title "Medicinal Lightning."
Now for a case of "Judicial Lightning."
On July 20, 1872, a negro named Norris was hanged in the State of
Kentucky for having killed a mulatto, a fellow-workman of his. At the
moment of his setting foot upon the scaffold, there was a terrible
clap of thunder, and the condemned man was struck dead by lightning.
The sheriff was so much moved by the occurrence that he resigned his
office.
Let us wind up this little collection of strange cases with another
occurrence reported from the United States.
An immense grange had been built by a man named Abner Millikan, an
ardent republican, who adorned the front walls of his farm with
portraits of MacKinley and Hobart. During a violent storm that broke
out, the building was struck by lightning several times, and it
looked as though it were enveloped in great sheets of flame. Millikan,
who had been at some distance from the spot, rushed thither much
alarmed, and found to his relief that no damage had been done. The
portraits alone had been destroyed, and--here is the strange
detail--the lightning had traced the politicians' features upon the
wall.
Certainly lightning plays queer pranks. And I have said nothing yet of
the photographs lightning sometimes takes.
_Pranks_ they seem to us, but we may be sure there is some method in
their mischievousness. It is the same with women. Women in their
caprices are but obeying some law of nature. They are not so
capricious as they seem.
These strange facts teach us, anyway, not for the first time, that our
knowledge of the universe is still very incomplete, and that its study
is worth following up in all its chapters.
We may be certain that electricity exercises a much more important
influence in nature than is generally supposed, and that it plays a
_rôle_ in our own lives which is still practically unrecognized. In
the oppression we feel before the coming of a storm, and the sense of
relief we experience when it has passed, we have an instance of the
way in which physical and moral influences are apt to blend or
overlap.