[Illustration: Fig. 109.]
It may have happened to you to have been present when a servant’s
awkwardness has let a Venetian blind come down by the “run,” when you
surely cannot have failed to notice the terrific noise resulting. By a
similar fall of slats, of which the sudden contact gives a number of
sharp clatters, blended by the rapidity of their succession into one
crash, the semblance of a thunderbolt’s fall is given.
A A, stout iron rods, to which is fastened, at the lower ends, a board
C; they rise perpendicularly, and are fastened above, being about 10
feet in length. B B are ropes, to which, at E E, are fastened firmly the
slats D D (of which but two are represented, but there are as many as
will cover the whole space enclosed in the rods, set 6 or 10 inches
apart). These slats slide freely up and down the rods. The ropes, when
drawn up taut, retain the slats apart, but, on being released, the slats
fall, each striking the under one, and all coming down on C with a
fearful crash.