ELECTRIC STORMS.
“Far along,
From peak to peak the rattling crags among,
Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud,
But every mountain now hath found a tongue,
And Jura answers through her misty shroud,
Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud!
And this is in the night:--Most glorious night!
Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be
A sharer in thy fierce and far delight,
A portion of the tempest and of thee!
How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea,
And the big rain comes dancing to the earth!
And now again ’tis black--and now, the glee,
Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain mirth,
As if they did rejoice o’er a young earthquake’s birth.”
Who has not quailed before the storm? Few, indeed, are they whose
spirits kindle with the flash of the lightning, and joy in the roar of
the thunder, that fills the heavens like the voice of many waters. Bold
is the heart that in such scenes can mount with a Byron, and say to the
Avernian gloom that wraps the frightened world,
“Let me be
A portion of the tempest and of thee!”
Only that fiery, untameable spirit, fearless of man or demon, dare so
approach the King of the Storm, or pat the mane of Ocean in his wrath. A
thousand plaudits has he won--but not a follower: for when the lightning
flames and roars, the cheering rabble slink away in fear, nor dare to
emulate that genius, strange and wild as chaos as itself.
[Illustration: THE LYSE FIORD.]
The fear of the tempest belongs to every age. The ancient Greeks, from
whom the Romans borrowed and modified the myth, told how Hephaistos
toiled in his volcanic forge to form the bolts of Zeus, great father of
gods and men. These flaming weapons could none oppose. By them
rebellious giants were overturned. And the bold Goth, rugged and
vigorous, heard the voice of the war-god, Thor, shout to him:
“Mine eyes are the lightning,
The wheels of my chariot
Roll in the thunder!”
The Arab saw the wild combat of genii, whom the great Solomon had not
subdued. Woe to the luckless wight who should arouse their ill-will! The
Arabian Nights tell us of a contest between one of these spirits of fire
and a beautiful princess, versed in magic. The swarthy Moor beheld the
hand of God, waving on his angels to contest with the hosts of evil: and
the same idea of wild combat in the spirit world is found in the myths
of the Caribs and Lapps. In the Hindoo cosmogony, the lightning and
storm are the chief weapons of Siva, the destroyer, who will one day
blot the world out of existence. Only in the red man’s tales do we find
the idea of the Christian world, of one Great Spirit who rules all
nature. In the Persian mythology, lightning and gloom represent the
contest between the forces of Ahriman, prince of evil, and Ormuzd, the
great creator and preserver of good. And among the old Etruscans, from
whom the Romans borrowed many rites and ceremonies, the lightning was
one of the chief objects in their system of augury and divination. A
favorable flash of lightning outweighed all portents of ill. The thunder
was the voice of the gods, communicating their will to men.
And so the ancients were content to pass the mystery by, unsolved. Now
and then a Pliny, a Seneca, an Aristotle, ventured a timid speculation
upon the origin and cause of lightning, but as electricity was an
unknown force to them, their conjectures were as wild as the chimærical
tales of Cimmerian darkness in ultra-Scythian realms, or of the Utopian
haven of bliss, where the Hyperboreans dwelt. But one of their various
conjectures is worthy of note, as it contains an element of truth. It
was, that the lightning was produced by mutual friction or violent
concussion of the clouds.
Since electricity has been recognized as the agent in the phenomena of
thunder storms, inquiry as to whether it is a cause or a result of the
formation of clouds, has produced evidence in favor of the latter fact
(though clouds differently charged have mutual attraction for each
other), for rapid motion of gases may be made to generate electricity. A
natural sequence would be that thunder storms are most violent where
clouds are heaviest. Hence, thunder storms are naturally most frequent
and violent in the tropics, where the greater heat produces immense
masses of vapor. and are unknown in the polar world, where the
comparative dryness of the atmosphere is unfavorable. The unusual amount
of electricity in dense clouds in rapid motion is shown by the
tremendous electrical displays attendant upon tornadoes and cyclones.
Another illustration of lightning resulting from cloud agency, rather
than controlling them, may be found in the cloudless Sahara, where
evidences of electricity are sometimes to be observed in the time of the
Khamsin, while the thunder storm is unknown. One notable exception to
the rule that thunder storms are violent and frequent in all tropical
regions is to be found in Peru, with its cloudless skies and eternal
sun, where a rainfall or a thunder storm would be as great a curiosity
as a palm tree at the north pole. The mere fact of elevation renders
the thunder storm more violent in mountainous regions, in both temperate
and tropical worlds.
Knowing the character of this mysterious power, we may not enter upon a
lengthy discussion of the changes, chemical, physical and otherwise,
that may be produced by it. Within the scope of this work, only its rank
as an agent of destruction and a historical factor may be considered. Is
electricity to be greatly feared? to be put on a par with the flood, the
hurricane, and the earthquake? Has it ever figured in the history of
nations sufficiently to directly affect their destinies?
The first and most familiar aspect of its power is the thunder storm,
which needs not a word of description. It results merely from the
discharges passing between two bodies oppositely charged. There is one
comparatively rare form of lightning, in which it appears as a globe of
fire slowly descending, with wayward and unexpected dashes to the side,
sometimes coming down a chimney and playing about the floor like a
kitten, much to the discomfiture of the inmates, till it at length
explodes with immense force, hurling zig-zag lightnings all about. This
peculiar freak, several times observed, is as yet unexplained.
The lightning seems throughout most civilized nations to be the most
dreaded of all natural agencies, if we may judge from the many
precautions taken against it. And in truth it is a terrific power,
cleaving the hardest rocks, rending the mighty oak, and fusing the most
refractory substances. Darting into the soil it frequently forms tubes
of vitreous appearance by fusing the earth and stones as it passes. The
writer has seen masses of straw fused in the same way. And when we
remember that French savants have, with the most powerful of batteries
been able to produce tubes only an inch in length and one-fiftieth of
an inch in diameter by passing shocks through powdered glass, we may
well stand in awe at the terrible power that produces tubes thirty feet
long and four inches in diameter in the far more obstinate feldspar and
quartz.
[Illustration: IDEAL SUBTERRANEAN STORM.]
There are numerous cases of death by lightning; but the instances in
which more than one person has been killed by a flash are comparatively
rare. The freaks played far outdo those of the wind, and puzzle the
wisest. March 20, 1784, about four hundred people were assembled in the
theatre at Mantua, when lightning struck the building, and killed two
persons, injuring ten. But many who were not hurt found the bolt had
melted their watch-keys, earrings, and split diamonds they were wearing.
How such feats could be performed without in the least harming the
possessors is a mystery.
June 11, 1819, while a large assembly were attending divine services in
the church of Chateau Neuf les Montiers, in France, lightning struck the
building, killing nine persons and wounding eighty-two. In 1715 the
lightning fell into the abbey of Noirmoutiers, near Tours, and killed
twenty-two horses, but did no further harm to the one hundred and fifty
monks at supper than to turn over their one hundred and fifty bottles of
wine. In 1855, lightning struck a flock of sheep in France, killing
seventy-eight of them and two dogs, and sparing the old shepherdess. A
French author relates the case of a priest who was killed by lightning,
while the horse on which he rode was unhurt, and quietly continued
homeward with the stiffened corpse. A somewhat similar case has come
within the knowledge of the writer: a man on horseback being killed, and
the saddle perforated; yet the horse remained apparently unhurt. I
remember another instance of a man who was struck, and escaped unharmed;
but one of his boots was torn to shreds and some of the hobnails melted:
and I myself have been struck upon the foot, with no other result than a
peculiar numbness, lasting nearly half an hour.
In many instances a livid streak is the only mark left upon the dead
body; and again it may be torn almost to atoms; while in some cases not
the slightest trace is perceptible. The greater number fall in the first
class. In 1838, some cattle were killed by lightning near Nymnegen, in
Holland. Their bones were shattered to a thousand fragments, as though
by nitro-glycerine; while externally there was no particular token
visible. Some sheep killed in Bohemia, in 1718, were similarly served.
The fragments of bone were driven so thoroughly throughout the flesh
that the carcasses were unfit for food.
In 1869, the mayor of Pradette, France, was killed by lightning, and all
his clothes, with the exception of one shoe, were torn from the body.
“August 11, 1855, a man was struck by lightning on a road near
Vallerois, and entirely divested of his raiment, only a few remnants of
which could afterwards be found. Ten minutes after the stroke he was
restored to consciousness, complained of the cold, and asked how he came
to be without any clothing. No doubt, he would have more easily consoled
himself for the loss of his apparel had he known of the case reported by
Sestier, of a man whose whole right side was burnt, as if he had been
held for some time over a fire-pan, while his shirt, his drawers and the
rest of his dress bore no marks whatever of combustion.” Sometimes the
clothing is found unstitched; again, it is burnt, and again, in some
mysterious manner, seems to be annihilated.
Prof. Tyndall relates his sensations upon having a powerful electric
discharge pass through him: “Life was absolutely blotted out for a very
sensible interval, without a trace of pain. In a second or so
consciousness returned. * * * The _intellectual_ consciousness of my
position was restored with singular rapidity, but not so the _optical_
consciousness. * * * The appearance which my body presented to myself
was that of a number of separate pieces. The arms, for example, were
detached from the trunk and suspended in the air. In fact, memory and
the power of reasoning appeared to be complete long before the optic
nerve was restored to healthy action. But what I wish chiefly to dwell
upon here, is the absolute painlessness of the shock; and there can not
be a doubt that to a person struck dead by lightning the passage from
life to death occurs without consciousness being in the least degree
implicated. It is an abrupt stoppage of sensation, unaccompanied by a
pang.”
There is another class of peculiar freaks performed by this subtle
force, which the following instances illustrate. Prof. Perty tells of a
thunder storm in Switzerland, when “the lightning sprang from a pear
tree upon the verandah of a house, where it killed a boy and wounded his
mother. The pear tree and the house were burned down. On the arm of the
wounded woman a remarkably elegant impression of twigs and leaves, like
a photographic copy of part of the pear tree, was found.”
There are several cases noted of persons sitting near windows when
lightning flashing near by has produced an exact likeness of the person,
as though engraved on the glass.
“In 1825 the lightning fell upon the brigantine _El Buon Servo_, which
lay at anchor in the bay of Armiro, at the mouth of the Adriatic Sea.
The superstitious Ionian sailors generally fasten a horseshoe to the
foremasts of their ships, probably fancying that this simple means
affords them protection against the evil intentions of wizards and
witches. Of course, the _Buon Servo_ was not without its horseshoe.
Antonio Teodoro, of Scarpanto, was sitting near the mast, when it was
struck by lightning. He was killed at once. No marks of combustion were
found on his body, nor were his clothes torn; but on his back was found
the distinct impression of a horseshoe of the same size as that which
was nailed to the mast.”
In the records of the Academy of Sciences, we find that “the Signora
Morosa, a lady of Lugano, who sat near a window during a thunder storm,
received a shock which did her no further injury; but a flower which
stood in the passage of the electric fluid was distinctly pictured on
her thigh.” She carried the mark to her grave.
Lightning is one of the most useful purifiers of the atmosphere. There
can be no doubt that large quantities of noxious exhalations are
destroyed by electrical discharges. Its beneficial effects in this
respect have been long noted. “Both Hippocrates and Galenus remark that
the water which falls during a thunder storm is more healthy to drink
than that which proceeds from a uniformly clouded sky: and Plutarch
mentions that the rain from a thunder cloud is considered as more
favorable to vegetation, and communicates to plants a particular
flavor.” There are also on record a number of instances in which persons
long in poor health, on receiving light shocks, have greatly improved in
health and appearance. Similar results have been noticed in plant life.
Doubtless such cases as these gave rise to the belief of the ancients,
that to be struck by lightning was to be favored by the gods.
This opinion was especially noted in the case of Mithridates. Slightly
wounded in the forehead by lightning when a child, he escaped unhurt
later in life, when his sword was totally destroyed. These facts caused
him to be held in superstitious fear by the Romans. And Quintus Julius
Eburnus became consul, B. C., mainly because of a similar mark of divine
favor. Those who were killed by a flash were believed to be not subject
to decay, and were robed in white and buried where they fell. So also
those whose tombs lightning struck were peculiarly honored of Heaven.
Lord Byron alludes to this in his stanza upon the bust of Ariosto on the
poet’s tomb at Ferrara, which had been struck by lightning:
“The lightning rent from Ariosto’s bust
The iron crown of laurel’s mimicked leaves,
Nor was the ominous element unjust,
For the true laurel wreath which glory weaves
Is of the tree no bolt of thunder cleaves,
And the false semblance but disgraced his brow;
Yet, still, if fondly superstition grieves,
Know, that the lightning sanctifies below
Whate’er it strikes--yon head is doubly sacred now.”
The identification of electricity with lightning is a comparatively
recent occurrence. The story of Benjamin Franklin, patron saint of the
devout lightning-rod agent, is too familiar to require repetition. Yet,
the idea was first broached in the latter part of the seventeenth
century by two students of the new force, more than fifty years before
Franklin’s experiments.
Thunder clouds usually float from two thousand to five thousand feet
from the earth; but there is one case on record of two priests being
killed by lightning from a cloud only thirty yards from the ground;
while another thunder storm is noted as having occurred eighteen
thousand feet from the earth. As sound travels about one thousand and
ninety feet per second, any one may ascertain the distance of a flash by
noting the time that elapses ere the thunder is heard. All existing
records fail to tell of thunder heard more than four miles; while the
cannonading at Paris in 1871 could be heard one hundred and five miles;
and Waterloo could be heard one hundred and fifty miles.
The action of lightning is instantaneous, and when near by the report is
at first a single sharp crack; but it is always followed by a long
rolling, so characteristic that every name given the thunder in a
measure endeavors to imitate it. The reason of the continued roll from a
single flash is simple, and is to be found in the fact that a flash
usually travels several miles; and as sound travels as stated above, the
sounds generated at different distances come to the ear in rapid
succession, resulting in a continuous roar.
As the flash is due merely to the attraction between two bodies charged
with opposite kinds of electricity, the discharge may pass either up or
down. Cases are on record of persons on a mountain side being killed by
lightning from a cloud below them, and of people on the ground killed by
lightning dashing from them toward the sky.
Among the more notable fatalities resulting from lightning may be
mentioned the terrible thunder storm of 1793, at Buenos Ayres, when the
lightning struck thirty-seven times within the city, and killed nineteen
people. A number of persons were killed on June 18, 1872, in England, at
different places; and numerous others perished within the month from
similar discharges.
Electricity seems to kill by destroying nervous power. Cardanus tells of
eight reapers being killed while taking their meal under an oak. When
the witnesses of the occurrence ran to the spot, they saw a strange
sight. The victims “seemed to be still busy with their frugal repast.
One of them held his glass, another was putting some bread into his
mouth, a third had his hand in the dish. The angel of death had struck
them so violently that the whole surface of their bodies bore the marks
of his black wings. They seemed so many statues sculptured in black
marble.”
“In another case where ten reapers were killed under a hedge, one of
them had a dog on his knee at the time when he was struck. The
unfortunate man was caressing with one hand his little companion, and
with the other giving him a piece of bread. Both master and dog were
merely inert masses of rigid muscle and stiffened sinew, and yet the
bread was still held by the lifeless hand. The dog, with his mouth
expressively open, seemed still to beg for the proffered morsel.”
A peasant woman in the suburbs of Nancy was struck while gathering
flowers. She was found standing, holding in her hand the daisy she had
been plucking. A French soldier took refuge under a tree during a storm;
a peasant sheltered himself in a copse near by. The soldier was killed
by lightning. The storm over, the peasant crept out and called to the
soldier to come on. Receiving no answer, he
[Illustration: HARVESTERS KILLED BY LIGHTNING.]
went up and touched the erect, motionless figure. It at once melted
away. Only a little dust remained. A similar result occurred not long
since in a powerful electric light plant. A large rat endeavored to
cross some of the machinery, and at once became rigid, as though an
image of stone. One of the employes, taking a stick, endeavored to push
the carcass off; it at once disappeared in a cloud of impalpable dust.
Terrible results have followed from lightning striking into powder
magazines. August 18, 1769, the powder vault in the tower of St.
Nazaire, at Brescia, was struck. The explosion destroyed one-sixth of
the city completely, and damaged all buildings more or less. Three
thousand persons were killed, while the property ruined amounted to over
$3,000,000. June 26, 1807, the lightning struck a magazine in the
fortress of the Luxembourg, ruining the lower town, and killing or
wounding two hundred and thirty people. In 1856 the powder vaults in the
church of St. John, in the island of Rhodes were struck. More than two
hundred people were instantly killed.
The lightning often shows in itself a sort of explosive power. Every one
is familiar with the blasting of trees, and the throwing of fragments to
a great distance. Some unusually violent effects of this class have been
noticed. In 1762, stones weighing one hundred and fifty pounds, were
flung from a church in Cornwall, to a distance of one hundred and eighty
feet. In the Shetland Isles, during the last century, a rock of mica
schist, one hundred and five feet long, ten feet broad, and from three
to five feet thick, was in an instant torn by a flash of lightning from
its bed, and broken into three large and several smaller fragments. One
piece twenty-six feet long, ten feet broad, and four feet thick, was
merely inverted. A second, twenty-eight feet long, seventeen feet broad,
and five feet thick, was hurled over a high point to a distance of
fifty yards: another mass, forty feet long, was hurled still further in
the same direction, quite into the sea.
Certain localities seem to have peculiar attractive power for lightning.
On the Norwegian coast is a narrow channel between two dark rocky
headlands, where the lightning seems often to play almost incessantly.
The gloomy chasm, so frequently reverberating with the roll of the
thunder, is viewed with superstitious fear by ignorant sailors; and the
boldest heart is filled with awe in the forbidding presence of the Lyse
Fiord. By many he is thought a venturesome captain who will dare take
his vessel through this frowning gateway.
But after a careful consideration of the topic, it is clear that
lightning is less to be feared than almost any other of the atmospheric
phenomena. Comparatively rare are the cases where more than one or two
persons are killed at once. Statistics hitherto collected show that
scarcely one death in two thousand is occasioned by it. And yet no force
seems to be so universally feared. Every people in every age have taken
precautions against it, while the hurricane and the flood pass almost
unheeded.
The ancient Thracians were wont to shoot their arrows at the sky during
a storm, to remind the fire-gods to be a little more careful in their
sport. A similar practice is found among certain South African tribes:
while the South Sea Islanders, far more fearless, tell of Ina, a woman
whom the moon stole for his wife, while she was beating bark-cloth. She
may be seen in the moon to-day--the figure we call the “man in the
moon.” Continually at work, she spreads out her cloth on the sky to
dry--(clouds)--fastening it down with blue stones, of which the sky is
built. When done, she gathers it up, throwing down the stones, which,
falling upon the earth, produce the sound of thunder. The lightning is
the torch the moon holds to aid her in her work.
Augustus was wont to retire to a subterranean vault during a storm, and
it is said the Japanese emperors had a similar custom, having the
additional precaution of large reservoirs of water over the grottos.
When away from home, Augustus usually wrapped himself in sealskin,
believed, not only by the Romans, but by many others, to be
lightning-proof. In some portions of France, the peasants believe snake
skins to be an efficient anti-lightning charm. And among not a few of
the ancients there was a belief prevalent that lightning never injured a
person in bed.
In the passage quoted from Byron on the bust of Ariosto, allusion is
made to the belief that lightning never strikes the laurel-plant sacred
to Apollo. Firm in this opinion, Tiberius, during thunder storms, put on
a laurel crown; and similar virtue is to-day ascribed by the Chinese to
peach and mulberry trees. Not a few persons to-day believe glass to be a
safeguard, and that a person is safe beside a closed window. Seamen, and
not a few of the peasantry of different regions, believe the firing of
guns will break up a thunder storm. Tolling of church-bells is another
powerful protection against the fires of the sky, which has cost many a
bell-ringer his life; a tall steeple being unusually liable to be
struck, and a damp bell-rope forming a good conductor. One authority
tells us of three hundred and eighty-six steeples struck within
thirty-three years, and one hundred and twenty-one bell-ringers killed.
The preventive was all right; but these tollers had sinned away all
right to protection, and perished as victims of Divine wrath, instead of
an absurd custom.
Such are some of the many illusory modes of protection in vogue in times
past, and existing to no small extent in the present. Comment upon them
is unnecessary. We know to-day that the higher objects are most liable
to be struck, and that metals are the best conductors; and on these
facts the whole system of lightning-rod protection is based.
But in regard to even the best conductors, a witty German has found much
room for ridicule. “While I am writing this, symptoms of dysentery are
showing themselves with us in Gottingen. Six persons are said to have
died of this complaint--that is more than twice as many in a few days as
the lightning has killed in our town in half a century--and yet the
public seems remarkably easy upon the subject. I do not even find that
the cheapest _dysentery conductors_ have been resorted to. People still
go about in light clothing, although the wind is already blowing over
the stubble, and I have even perceived, within the last few days, that
some persons sleep with open windows, which are very carefully closed
during a thunder storm, and yet there is not a single instance known
that lightning has ever made its way through an open window, while
dysentery very easily strikes into a bedroom, particularly when, after a
warm day, it makes its appearance in company of rain and a cool wind. Is
not this singular? How would people conduct themselves in these days if
the dysentery was to rise above the horizon in the form of a low black
cloud, changing day into twilight, and whenever it selected a victim,
explode with a violent thunder clap, which made the house shake? I
believe there would be no end of singing and praying. And yet this storm
is now impending on our heads--but without thunder claps and black
clouds, which are, after all, only accessories--and we go about our
affairs as if nothing were happening.”
The fact that objects reaching much above the general surface are most
liable to be struck, places ships at sea in a peculiarly dangerous
position; and considering the relative number of the two, ships are more
frequently struck than houses. The packet boat _New York_, was struck
some years since: the chain which was attached to the mainmast as
conductor was entirely volatilized, not being large enough to act as
conductor.
The fact that electricity passes most readily from elevated points,
renders the ship the scene of the most beautiful of the more common
electric phenomena. Any one who has visited an electric plant knows how
sparks and flashes of light accumulate on the brushes; and a similar
spectacle may at times be seen on the wires of electric lights at night.
So at sea during cloudy weather, the yards, masts, spars and other more
prominent points often glow with pale lambent flames, of greenish or
bluish tint. One who clambers up to them may find upon near approach
that they almost disappear; while to one a short distance away they are
as distinct as ever. A hand plunged into the flame glows with the same
spectral light. This phenomenon is popularly known among sailors as “St.
Elmo’s fire;” but there is much difference of opinion as to what it may
forebode. Some sailors believe the ghost of a dead comrade is
accompanying the ship. Others consider that St. Elmo has taken the ship
under his protection. A more common, and the rational view, is thus
given by Longfellow:
“Last night I saw St. Elmo’s stars
With their glimmering lanterns, all at play,
On the tops of the masts, and the tips of the spars,
And I knew we should have foul weather to-day.
Cheerily, my hearties!--yo-heave-oh!
Brail up the mainsail and let her go,
As the winds will, and St. Antonio.”
This phenomenon has been noticed from the earliest times. Shakespeare
wrote three centuries ago, in “The Tempest:”
_Prospero._--“Hast thou, spirit,
Performed, to point the tempest that I bid thee?”
_Ariel._--“To every article.
I boarded the King’s ship: now on the beak,
Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,
I flamed amazement: sometimes I’d divide,
And burn in many places: on the topmast,
The yards and bowsprit would I flame distinctly;
Then meet and join.”
When Lysander was about to set sail from Lampsacus to attack the
Athenian fleet, “Castor and Pollux” appeared upon each side of the
Lacedemonian admiral’s vessel, greatly encouraging him. Such were the
names of the strange lights among the ancients: and ever and anon we
find record of their appearance.
This title needs explanation. This peculiar halo is not confined to the
sea, nor to inanimate objects. The electric aureole has been frequently
observed upon persons, and has always been considered a good omen. The
Spartan Gylippus on his march to raise the siege of Syracuse, saw a star
upon his lance and rejoiced at the token of divine favor. Nearly every
tyro in Latin is familiar with the tale that Servius Tullius, when a
child, was found asleep in his cradle with flames playing about him, and
was in consequence educated like a prince, and became king of Rome.
Stories of halos about Constantine the Great, and the Visigoth emperor
Wamba, are also told. It is said that during Cæsar’s African war, flames
sprang from the standards of the fifth legion during a stormy night: and
at a time when Rome, almost in despair at the triumphs of Carthage and
the death of two Scipios in Spain, was seriously meditating the
abandonment of the contest, Lucius Marcius ventured upon a harangue to
encourage the dispirited legions. While he spoke, a flame rested upon
his helmet. Roused by the wonderful mark of divine favor, the Romans
went forth yet again, and gained one of their greatest victories. What
might have been the fate of the world if Carthage, not Rome, had
prevailed? Who dare assert that an electric flame has not changed the
destinies of the universe?
But the earliest story of this sort comes from the famed expedition of
the _Argo_, in search of the Golden Fleece. During a fearful storm
Orpheus invoked the gods of Samothracia; and immediately divine lights
appeared upon the heads of Castor and Pollux, two members of the party,
and the storm ceased. So after death the two mythical heroes were
promoted a place among the demi-gods, and became the especial patrons of
sailors: and the strange lights on shipboard were supposed to indicate
their presence. A single light, however, was supposed to bode evil, and
to be the work of the mischief-making Helena.
Since the extension of travel and scientific research, this phenomenon
has been so frequently observed as to be no longer considered
remarkable; and it is supposed to be due to electric clouds or currents
coming in direct contact with objects, so that instead of the flash of
lightning from a distance, there is a steady discharge, often with some
hissing or crackling sound, noticeable at the brushes of any electric
machine; in fact, the noise is seldom absent. It almost invariably
appears before or after a thunder storm: and has hardly ever been
observed during one. To this same cause must be attributed the
occasional showers of luminous rain and dust.
But no amount of science can rob such appearances of their terrors for
the uninitiated. Of scores of instances we might name, a single one will
suffice. Prof. Siemens tells of an unusual electric disturbance during a
Khamsin, while his party and his Arab guides were upon the summit of
the great pyramid. Hearing a hissing noise as the wind rose, he at
length concluded it must be due to electricity: and “holding up a full
wine-bottle, the head of which was coated with tin foil,” the same
hissing was increased. The bottle was then wrapped with moist paper, to
increase its capacity. Even before this, a severe shock could be
obtained from the head of the bottle.
“The Arabs, who for some time had been looking on with astonishment at
our proceedings, came to the conclusion that we were practicing magic,
and insisted upon our leaving the pyramid. Their remonstrances being of
no avail, they now wanted to use the right of the stronger, and to make
us descend by force. I retreated to the highest stone block and loaded
my bottle as strongly as possible, while the leader of the Arabs seized
me by the other hand and was endeavoring to drag me down. At this
critical moment, I touched him with the neck of the bottle, and the
effects of the shock it produced were such as to surpass my keenest
expectations. The son of the desert, whose nerves had never before felt
a similar commotion, fell flat down upon the ground, as if struck by
lightning; and then springing up with a dreadful howl, soon vanished out
of sight, followed by all his comrades.”
These cases of halos and electric aureoles thus far mentioned, have
clearly played a far more important part in the history of nations than
the more frequently occurring lightning stroke, merely because of the
wonderful hold they have had upon the superstitious tendency of man.
Leave Servius Tullius out of the history of Rome, or leave out the
speech and aureole of Marcius, and who can say how different the face of
the earth might be?
More frequently observed, and because of its frequency, comparatively
unheeded in northern climes, is the aurora, which in the temperate zone
has frequently inspired terror equal to the earthquake, though
absolutely harmless. The writer recalls that a bright aurora not so very
many years ago caused not a few superstitious folk to believe the end of
the world was at hand. They believed the red streamers to be the chariot
of fire in which the Lord was speeding earthward. This was the great
aurora of September 3, 1859, which was visible from the United States to
Siberia, from the Cape of Good Hope and Australia to the north of
Europe. It was the most tremendous ever known, and well calculated to
terrify the superstitious.[A]
[A] And even so late as 1872, the brilliant aurora which was seen as
far south as Alexandria, was believed by the intelligent Parisians to
forebode terrible wars, and the speedy overthrow of the hated Germans,
who had so lately trampled their capital and their pride. And in
earlier days the northern light had been deemed the harbinger of war,
famine or pestilence.
Humboldt, and others since, have supposed the aurora to be light emitted
by the earth itself; but to-day its electric character is proven beyond
a doubt. Electric discharges passed through a tube containing greatly
rarefied dry air produce the same effect on a small scale; and every
aurora produces a powerful disturbance of magnetic instruments. In most
cases, they are attended by a hissing, crackling noise: so the Siberians
are wont to say that “the raging host is passing.”
We find occasional references to the aurora among ancient writers, but
little attempt to explain it. So we have even few myths, it not being
common enough in warmer climes to hold a place in popular tales. But in
Iceland, and more northern regions, it is of constant and brilliant
occurrence, merely because it requires dry air, and the coldest air is
the driest. So among Scandinavian races appears the myth embodied by
Longfellow in the “Saga of King Olaf.” The war god, Thor, speaks:
“The light thou beholdest
Stream through the heavens
In flashes of crimson,
Is but my red beard,
Blown by the night wind,
Affrighting the nations.”
And Scott has told us of the belief in Scotland and the northern isles,
of spirits abroad in the upper air:
“The monk gazed long on the lovely moon,
Then into the night he looked forth:
And red and bright, the streamers light,
Were dancing in the glowing north.
So had he seen, in fair Castile,
The youth in glittering squadrons start,
Sudden the flying jennet wheel,
And hurl the unexpected dart.
He knew by the streams that shot so bright,
That spirits were riding the Northern light.”
The light emitted by the aurora varies much in intensity. Ordinarily it
is not greater than that of the moon in her first quarter; but a few
instances are recorded where it was powerful enough to make itself
perceptible by day; and on one occasion it was strong enough at night to
cast a shadow in the midst of a Newfoundland fog. As the phenomenon has
been carefully studied only within a century, it is not safe to affirm
with certainty what records of the past three hundred years have induced
many to believe; that it is of special frequency at periods of one
hundred and fifty years. This can only apply to the temperate zones; for
in the polar world it is to be seen on almost every clear still night.
M. Martins has given us a striking picture of the auroras. “At times
they are simple diffused gleams or luminous patches; at others,
quivering rays of pure white which run across the sky, starting from the
horizon as if an invisible pencil were being drawn over the celestial
vault. At times it stops in its course: the incomplete rays
[Illustration: LAND OF THE AURORA.]
do not reach the zenith, but the aurora continues at some other point; a
bouquet of rays darts forth, spreads out into a fan, then becomes pale
and dies out. At other times long golden draperies float above the head
of the spectator, and take a thousand folds and undulations, as if
agitated by the wind. They appear to be at but a slight elevation in the
atmosphere, and it seems strange that the rustling of the folds, as they
double back on each other, is not audible. Generally a luminous bow is
seen in the north; a black segment separates it from the horizon, its
dark color forming a contrast with the pure white or red of the bow,
which darts forth the rays, extends, becomes divided, and soon presents
the appearance of a luminous fan, which fills the northern sky, and
mounts nearly to the zenith, where the rays, uniting, form a crown,
which in its turn, darts forth luminous jets in all directions. The sky
then looks like a cupola of fire: blue, green, red, yellow and white
vibrate in the palpitating rays of the aurora. But this brilliant
spectacle lasts only a few minutes; the crown first ceases to emit
luminous jets, and then gradually dies out; a diffuse light fills the
sky; here and there a few luminous patches, resembling light clouds,
open and close with an incredible rapidity, like a heart that is beating
very fast. They soon get pale in their turn; everything fades away and
becomes confused; the aurora seems to be in its death-throes; the stars,
which its light had obscured, shine with a renewed brightness; and the
long polar night, sombre and profound, again assumes its sway over the
icy solitudes of earth and ocean.”
In the presence of such brilliancy and beauty, both poet and artist may
despair. It may be copied only by the master hand that sent it flaming
through the heavens. There is naught under the sun whereunto to liken
it, and it is the electric flash which men may least fear; and yet,
even it has wrought evil at times; for its magnetic power disturbs the
compass; and the electric storms it betokens have more than once in the
past caused electric wires to set objects near them on fire. I well
remember the powerful electric disturbances that attended a magnificent
aurora in 1884, which was visible as far as southern Arkansas. Depots
were fired in many places by electric switch-boards; one in Pennsylvania
taking fire four times. During this electric storm, telegraphs and
telephones were temporarily useless.
Such are the phenomena presented in the atmosphere by this most
mysterious power. Dreadful in the lightning’s leap, strange and uncanny
in the aureole’s glow, wildly and weirdly beautiful in the flickering
flash and flow of the Northern Light, we have seen that, though it has
played an important part in the history of the world because of its
appeal to man’s superstition, it is notwithstanding the occasional bolt
of death, to be considered, while one of the most powerful and
universal, one of the least to be feared of all the forces of nature;
and is practicably responsible for few great disasters.