The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1875-08-27
Lightning.

The last two months have been re
markable for the number of persons
who have been killed or injured during
them by lightning. Statistics in regard
to this point are not complete, but those
that have been gathered show about one
person each day struck by this subtle
and powerful agent in various parts OF
the union, about half as many having
been killed as have been merely injured.
Death by lightning is not at any time
| so rare an occurrence as it is commonly
! thought to be, but electrical disturb
| ances during the present summer have
been greater and more frequent than
| usual. The heavens have been at war
with the earth with water and fire, and
have succeeded in doing much injury
to their old antagonist. Floods, hurri-
canes, and cyclones, hail and lightning
have wrought uncommon disaster, and,
IN not predicting the immediate de-
struction of the world, persons of a
prophetic, seventh-seal, and Millerite
tendency have not shown themselves
fully awake to the opportunities of the
time. The "freaks of lightning" has
become a common phrase, no other
force than electricity ever being guilty
of such enormous and wonderful vet
common departures from their ordinary
working with such terrific effect. If It
were possible for gravitation to indulge
in such freaks if there were cosmical
storms in which the worlds we're sent
whirling through space on the instant,
knocking their heads together and then
the cosmical sky should clear off, the
nebulae roll away, the central sun
oh oYo1 oil Ha 1Cr-aTx7 ~
were possible we should have to seek
homes in Mr.. Proctor's "Other Worlds
than Ours for peace and quietness.
Lightning can never be depended upon
to act in any given way sometimes it
appears as a ball of fire rolling along
the ground and exploding with terrific
noise, or going quietly into the earth
sometimes it hovers and flashes close
to the earth or water; again, in zig
gag line it leaps from cloud to cloud or
directly to the earth sometimes a man
is struck and no lightning is seen
sometimes it touches man and gently
melts his watch, doing no other harm
anon it strikes a house, runs down the
chimney and, finding nothing of more
Importance to do, kinkly sends poker
flying through the window, melts cop.
per kettle and then runs down a rat
hole. Its favorite mansuvre is to tear
off the sole of mans boot on its pas
sage to the earth. It has a peculiar eff
feet in fastening the decay of animal
tissue, and not unfrequently the person
who is killed by it is almost instantly
SO far putrefed that he has 20 be
buried at once. 1t is said, though with
what truth we know not, that in the
eye of person struck and killed by
the discharge there is always peculiar
spot on the eyeball, produced by the
extravazation of blood caused by the
sudden expansion and rupture of mi
mute blood vessels. 1t was once sup
posed that neighboriDg trees were
sometimes photographed on the body
of the person struck, but recently it
has been shown that the appearance of
the tree is but the common authorization
of electricity which every one who mas
noticed highly charged Leyden jar
has seen, as the electricity escapes into
the air or ticks around to the tinfoil on
the outside The same effect may be
obtained by discharging lightning over
sheet of glass on which steam has
been condensed. The safest place dur
ing thunder storm is in the center of
a room, and if one is very nervous he
may put tumblers under the legs of the
chair on which he sits, for electricity
always seeks the path of the least re-
sistanoo