Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1899-06-13
LIGHTNING A PUZZLE
NO REASONABLE GROUND FOR THE
 GENERAL FEAR ENTeRTAlNED.i--.-.=- -..-


 Facts and speculations About Celestial Ar. tmery-some Curious Performances fp
 Which the Dreaded Fluid Has Indulge6
 Value of Lightning Rods.
 The weather bureau has been doing Q lot of speculating of late on the sub' jeet of lightning.
 Out of every three persons struck py lightning two survive and recover. The amount of electricity in Q thunderbog Is not very great the experts say but its voltage is extremely high, and that Is what does the damage, 1t is rather remarkable that so little should be known us to the nature of the fluid which is in such common and everyday use. Nowadays it would be as easy to get along without water us without electricity, yet tue fluid is still called the mysterious" inasmuch as it's character and properties are to great extent unknown. The latest and the best accepted theory Oh the subject Is that, like light, it is form of motiop.
 But what puzzles the experts most is to discover the nature of the balls of electricity which are con- stantly cutting up strange capers. Fireba1ls of this description though not properly so termed, have been produced artifcially in Germany, by charging masses of vapor with elee- tricity. Soon after the famous experi- ments of Franklin with kite, inyesti. gators in various parts of the world initiated bis performance. One or these was Prof. Richman, we'll known scientist of St. Petersburg. He succeeded in drawing the lightning in- to bis laboratory, but the result was unfortunate, inasmnch as a fiery ball 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 a 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 a con- ductor, and is able to carry only q certain amount of the electric fluid. If An avalanche of electricity comes 1t may overflow, like 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 ligBtning rods up to date has been afforded by the Washington monu- mept It Is capped by a small four sided pyratnid 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 copperl rods which go down deep into thal earth. On April ,, 1885, five immensaI bolts of electricity were seen to fash between the monument and thunderI cloud overhanging in the course oil twenty minutes. Tn other words, the} monument was struck fiereely fveI times, but it suffered no damage what4 ever. On June 15, of the same year, more tremendous assault was madd upoh the monument from the heavensl and the result was fracture of one Of the topmoSt stones. The crack still red mains to show what nature can do i'd the way of an electric shock, but th( slightness of the damage is evidence oi mans power to protect himself fronX such attacks. The obelisk is ideali located for attracting electrical aa saults from the skies, and yet, whiI( many times hit, 1t has suffered onl once, and that time to a trifing exten(
 In old times vessels used often to bl struck by lightning and the loss b that cause was very great From 17g to 1840 no fewer than 280 ships of tIl British navy were struck, 100 men b ing killed and 250 injured. Nowaday warships, as well as big merchant vel sells, have lightning rods running dow their masts and into the sea so thu the electricity Is carried off Tn thes days nobody hears of the destructid of q vessel by lightning. Churches a the buildings most commonly struc l There is record Of certain church
 Carinthia which WAS hit by lightniI four or five times year on an avera the services being stopped in sumn1 on this account. 4 rod was put on
 steeple and there was no more troub