Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1893-01-04
ODD BEHAVIOR OF LIGHTNING.
Some reported Proceedings of the Bal

Anere was oellef among the EtruS-
cans that there were three kinds Of
lghtning-one incapable of doing any
injury, one more harmful in its nature
and consequently only to be issued with
the consent of a quorum of twelve gods,
third carrying disaster in its train,
and for which regular decree was re-
quired from the highest divinities.
Curiously enough, modern scientists
have also decreed that lightning is of
three kinds. The first comprehends
that in which the discharge manifests
! itself in a long, luminous line bent
into angles and zigzags. This kind is
known as forked lightning The second
differs from the first in the range OF
surface over which the fash is diffused
and is called sheet lightning, and the
third class has been made the subject
OF wide discussion and contention. Ii
never assumes the form of long lines
nor OF sheets of flame, but appears as
balls or Jumps of fire. They are not
momentary apparitions, but last sew
| eral seconds and burst, with bright
| flare and loud report, and occasional
| ly discharge flashes of lightning. A
| schoolmaster in Ohio whose school was
struck during recent storm declared
that he saw ball of fire strike and roll
down the flagstaff of the schooLhouse,
and the ball caused a panic among the
scholars.
A singular story comes from Paris. A
tailor who lived on the Rue St. Jacques
was eating his dinner one day during a
thunder storm when he heard loud
clap and saw the chimney board fall
/ -, e L.
had come quietly out and moved about
the room n few feet above the floor
After moving slowly about the ball
went back into the chimney, and n mo-
ment later there was loud explosion
which completely shattered the Chin
ney. A great many years ago the south
west pinnacle of an old church in Breog,
in Cornwall, was demolished by stroke
of lightning, and one stone, weighing
three hundred pounds. was hurled up
ward and in a southerly direction a dis
lance of one hundred yards, and Sec
ond was sent in n northerly direction
one hundred yards and third one
hundred yards to the east.
In the forest of Wemoun a tree was
once struck and two pieces torn from
its trunk. The smaller of the two
pieces was tossed a distance of twenty
feet, and the larger which it took eigh-
teen men to move was tossed twenty
feet In an opposite direction.
In 1878 the topmast of the fishing
schooner William and Mary Of Swamp
scott, Mass, was hit by flash and cut
into chips and since that time three
coasting schooners have had, the same
experience. A British ship while cross
ing the North Pacific ocean from China
was struck by ball of globular light
ming which left such a sulphurous odor
behind it that the crew was obliged to
take to the rigging in order to avoid
suffocation. This odor after an explo-
sion occurred recently in Cuba when a
large company of laborers on a tobacco
plantation were obliged to take to the
woods In order to avoid it.
; The magnetic effects produced by
lightning are often very singular in
deed. A chest containing large as
sortment of knives and cutlery was re-
Gently struck in a carpenter shop IN
Chicago and all of the articles were at
onoe magnetied. And a shoemaker in
Swabia had his tools treated in the
same way, to his great annoyance, as
he had to be constantly freeing his
hammer from his avis and nails which
were always getting caught as they lay
: together on his bench. And some years
) ago Genoese ship was wrecked near
Algiers in consequence of the lightning
having played pranks with the compass
and the captain supposing that he was
/ sailing TO the north instead of to the
south.
Another class of effects caused by
: lightning are cures equity men have
! been enabled to walk freely, epileptic
persons have been healed and rheuma-
tism has been cured by fash On the
other hand the effects of magnetic
i lightning are harmless. Three hun
T dred persons were once struck in
Charleston prison and completely
robbed of their muscular strength
There is still another phen omena
: produced by lightning and this is the
lightning prints. Mr.. Poly, who has
treated the subject of lightning prints
e very fully In the pages of the French
+ scientific journals, mentions twenty.
8 four cases of the impression on
the bodies of men and animals.
? OF these eight are of trees or
/ parts of trees, one of bird and one
of a COW, two of horseshoes, one of q
nail, one of a metal comb, four OF
I crosses. Crosses in this connection are
2 very old, for it was declared that in the
year $50 A. D. they were printed on the
bodies and clothing of the workmen
= were employed in rebuilding the temple
of Jerusalem.
4 horseshoe was found indelibly
marked on the neck of young man in
e Cuba who was struck dead by light
ming near house upon the walls of
which horseshoe was nailed.
In 1859 little girl was standing at a
8 window near which stood a young ma
2 pie tree. A fash of lightning struck
! either the girl or tree, or both, and the
image of the tree was found printed on
a her body. In another case boy was
' climbing a tree to steal birds nest,
when he was struck by lightning, and
the tree with the bird and the nest APP
e peared upon his back.-N. Y World.
We have been asked to believe that
RudyArd Kipling is a very bumptious
young man, but this story, which is at