Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1899-05-31
LIGHTNING 4 PUZZLE
,,o REASONABLE GROUND FOR THE
 GENERAL FEAR ENTERTAiNED.i


 ra.+. and speculations About Celestial Ar
 .,,,..v Some Curious Performances in
 which the Dreaded Fluid Has Ano"1See
 vaIue of Lightning Rods.
 Tho weather bureau has been doing :. Iot of speeulating of late on the suos feet of lightning. .4.o,. ,,7,
 Ont of every three persons struek ,,,,' py uobtnine two survive and recover. me n,,,,,,nt of electricity in thunderDo1 is not very great the experts say put lts goltege is extremely high, and that IS vThot does the damage. 1t is ratheF remarkable that so little should pc known as ito the nature of the nulo which is in such common and eYeryday nse Nowadays it would be as easy fo get along without water as without eIecfrieity. vet the fluid is still called tho "mysterious," inasmueh as It's character and properties are to a great evtent unknown. The latest and the host accented theory on the suD1ect IS that, like light, it is form oI hloelon.
 Rut what puzzles the experts most is to discover the nature or tue balls of electricity which are con stantly cutting up strange capefs. Fireballs of this description, though not properly so termed, have been produced artificially in Germany, ey charging masses of yapor Wlth elec- tricity Soon after the famous expefl- ments of Franklin with kite, lnYesu- gators in various parts of the Wotlo initiated his performance. one or these was Prof. Richman, a We'll known scientist of St. Petersburg. lie succeeded in drawing the lightning ln- to his laboratory, out the result was unfortunate, inasmuch as a hefy pail as big as a mans fist suddenly ap- peared in the room, leaped from the insulated conductor to his head and killed him. The occurrence was de- seribed by an assistant, who stated that the ball was blue.
 In recent years there has arisen 8 serious doubt as to the value of light ming rods. This distrust has arisen probably from the fact that buildings provided with lightning rods have on many occasions been destroyed. After all. the lightning rod is only con- ductor, and is able to carry only 8 certain amount of the electric fluid. If an avalanche of electricity comes 1t may overflow, like q torrent that oyer- flows the banks of the channel de. signed for it, and the result is disaster.
 One of the best evidences of the value of lightning rods up to date has been afforded by the Washington monu- ment It is capped by a small four sided pyramid of aluminium, which metal, so cheap today, was very costly at the time of the building of the greatest obelisk that the world has ever known. This aluminium tip is con- nected with the ground by four copper rods which go down deep into tho earth. On April ,, 1885, five immense bolts of electricity were seen to flash between the monument and thunder cloud oYerhanging in the course of twenty minutes. Tn other words, the monument was struck fieFPeIy five times, but it suffered no damage what ever. On June 15, of the same year, q more tremendous assault was made upon the monument from the heavens, and the result was fracture of one of the topmost stones. The crack still re- mains to show what nature can do in the way of an electric shock, but the sl1ghtness of the damage is evidence of mans power to protect himself from such attacks. The obelisk is ideally located for attracting electrical as- saults from the skies, and yet, while many times hit, it has suffered only once, and that time to trifing extent.
 In old times vessels used often to be struck by lightning and the loss by that cause was very great From 1790 to 1S40 no fewer than 2S0 ships of the British navy were struck, 100 men be. ing killed and 250 injured Nowadays warships, as well aS big merchant yes sells, have lightning rods running down their masts and info the sea so that the electricity is carried off. Tn these days nobody heare of the destruction of vessel by lightning. Churches are the buildings most commonly struck. There is record Of a certain church in Carinthia which WAS hit by lightning four or five times year on an average the services being stopped in summer on this account. \ rod was put on the steeple and there was no more trouble.