Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1893-04-27
FRANKS OF LIGHTNING.
Many Peculiar Freaks Noted.


required from the highest divinities.
Curiously enough modern scientists
have also decreed that lightning is of
three kinds, says the Cincinnati Com
mercial Gazette 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 flash is diffused and is
called sheet lightning, and the third
class has been made the subject of wide
! discussion and contention. 1t never as
sumes the form Of long lines nor of
sheets Of fame, but appears as balls
or humps Of fire. They are not mo-
mentary apparitions, but last several
seconds and burst with a bright flare
and loud report, and occasionally dis
! charge flashes of lightning. A school
master in Ohio whose school was
struck during a recent storm declared
! that he saw Il ball of fire strike and
roll down the flagstaff of the school
house, 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 q thunder storm when he heard
a loud clap and saw the chimney board
fall out and globe Of fire, as big as a
man, had come quietly out and moved
about the room a few feet above the
floor. After moving slowly about the
ball went back into the chimney. and
a moment later there was a loud eX-
plosion which completely shattered the
chimney. A great many yers ago the
southwest pinnacle Of an old church III
Breog, in Cornwall, was demolished by
a stroke of lightning, and one stone,
weighing 300 pounds, was hurled up
ward and in a southerly direction a dis
lance of 100 yards and a third 100 yards
| to the east.
In the forest Of WemOun a tree was
once struck and two pieces torn from
| it's trunk. The smaller of the two
| pieces was tossed a distance of twenty
feet, and the larger, which it took eight
cen men to move, was tossed twenty
| 1etI Ill tllt opposite tlIeCllOu.
| In 1875 the topmaSt OF the fishing
schooner William and Mary of Swamp
scott, Mass, was hit by a flash and cut
into chips, and since that time tb~ae
cOasting schoOners have had the S. e
| experience A British ship, while cross
| ing the North Pacific ocean from China
was struck by a ball of globular light
ming, which left such a sulphurous OdOr
behind it that the crew were 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 a large as
sOrtment of knives and cutlery was
recently struck in carpenter shop in
Chicago and all Of the articles Were
at once magentiZed. And a shoemaker
in SWabia had his tools treated in the
same way, to his great annoyance, as
he had to be constantly freeing the
| hammer from his avis and nails, which
were always getting caught as they
| lay together on his bench. And some
years ago a Genoese ship was wrecked
near A1giers in consequence of the light
ming 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. Gouty men have
been enabled to walk freely, epileptic
persons have been healed and rheuma-
tism has been cured by a flash. On
the other hand the effects of magnetic
lightning are harmless Three hundred
persons We're once struck in Charles
ton prison and completely robbed of
their muscular strength.
There is still another phenomenon
produced by lightning, and this is the
lightning prints Mr.. Poly, who has
| treated the subject of lightning prints
very fully in the pages of the French
scientific journals. mentions twenty-four
cases Of the impression on the bodies
of men and animals. Of these eight
are of trees or parts of trees, one of
a bird and one of a COW, two Of horse.
shoes, one of a nail, one of a metal
comb, four of crosses. Crosses in this
connection are very old, for it was de
clared that in the year $50 A. D. they
were printed on the bodies and cloth
ing of the wOrkmen, who were employ
ed in rebuilding the temple of Jerusa-
lem.
A horseshoe was found indelibly
marked on the neck of a young man in
Cuba, who was struck dead by lightning
near house upon the walls OF which
a horseshoe was nailed.
in 1853 a little girl was standing
at a window near which stood a young
maple tree. A flash of lightning struck
either the girl Or the tree, or both
and the imag e of the tree was found Oh
her body. In another case a boy was
climbing a tree to steal a birds nest
when he was struck by lightning and
the tree with the bird and the nest ap-
peared upon his back.
i There is much advantage in going
over a corn or potato stubble with
team and harrows as soon as the sur
face is dry enough to work. 1t breaks
down the stubs of cOrn-stalkS, uproot-
ing many of them, and so tightening
and smoothing the surface that the
blowing which comes later puts the
land in better condition. This is.
besides. a light. easy job for teams
51n Of Tho ,foyp