River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1905-01-05
cURIoSITIES OF LIGHTNING.
Various Phases of Electrical Discharg.
es Accounted For in Scientific
Manner.

1t is strange to speak OF conductors
that Will not conduct, and it is equally
strange to speak Of non-conductors thai
VIII conduct, says Electricity Yet this
is the situation confronting us when
we examine into the apparent idiosyn-
grasses OF lightning-its peculiar choice
OF paths, its leaps from conductors into
the air, and from the air back again TO
conductors. Some light can be thrown
on the mass of evidence indicating the
errauclsm of lightning discharges by
reference to one or two purely scientific
ana mathematical propositions entitled:
Inc Alternative Path" and Electrical
Oscillations"
DISresslng Tor moment, it is rather
startling to realize that in all probabili-
ty the electricity of the earth is as much
responsible for deaths and the destruc-
ZION OF property as the enormous dis
charges apparently emanating from the
lowering clouds above. The so-called
olsruptlVe discharge, due to an accumu-
latlon OF potential at two points, whose
limited capacity has led to this con-
densatlon of electricity and the conse-
quent discharge when the difference of
potential becomes too great for the in
tervenlng space to resist it's flashing lean
is Iamlllar to all. 1t has been duplicat-
cd on smaller scale in every laboratory
OF physics in the civilized world.
Other important and interesting facts
nave peen deduced which find their place
unoer the titles given above First,
what are electrical oscillations? To ne
explicit, 1t may be stated that all static
ulscnarges, great or small, and this of
course includes lightning. can become
osclIIatory in character. By the term
osclllatory is meant a series of back
anu Iorth surges of electricity, frequent
~ OF such tremendous rapidity that they
may reach the rate of 10000, 900. 49,
OO0,OOO, 100000 or even 100000, 900
oscillations per second. While revers.
ing they are constantly diminishing in
strength. Second, the oscillations are
dampened if they meet with a high re-
s1stance, and will increase in fire..
quency, in accordance with a certain
law, with mathematical certainty, dur
ing the instant of discharge, when the
RESISTANCE is low.
On the other hand, if the resistance
Is so low that, when the outburst of
pressure takes place, the oscillations
are so rapid that the conductor will
not respond to their influence, all the
effects of a tremendous self-induction
becomes visible. The charge of cleo.
tricity finds the low resistance cons
ductor entirely on account of it's own
high frequency practically a non-con-
ductor and therefore leaps through
the air to some conductor of higher re-
sistance, and thus, so to speak, leap.
ing from post to pillar, reaches the
earth. This last, the choice of paths, is
analysed under the head of alternative
paths, and, in connection with the the
DRY of oscillations, adequately explains
many of the most remarkable pecul-
| iarities of lightning in it's leaps from
the earth to a cloud or, as commonly
understood, in it's transit from cloud
to earth.
| The principle of electrostatic induc-
ton explains the electrification of the
earth. AS for instance, positively
charged cloud hanging overhead, with
the eartn beneath negatively electri-
fed by induction. If steeple is in the
vicinity armed with lightning rod,
1t is quite reasonable to suppose the
point of highest potential on that
geographical area thus affected to be
the rod. The discharge when it takes
place, is, in all likelihood, just as apt
to fly from the rod as from the cloud,
and for that reason the possible para
dox takes place of the earth sending
it's lightnings into the sky. A fact,
as previously stated, rather startling
to the lay mind.