The Holbrook news., 1911-12-08

that day An extraordinary feature of the Johnson killing was that the bolt came without warning. The heavens were clouded, but there was no storm, and, like most golfers, the unfortunate player was not daunted by the gloom of a muggy day.
 Most wonderful, however, of all lightning pranks hereabouts was the recent attack on miners working 2,533 feet underground in the passageways of the Hudson river aqueduct tunnel. If the miner isn't immune, what hu- man creature is? The reader will be surprised to learn that lightning casu- alties in mines, though not frequent, are not uncommon. The intake of air from the surface above sometimes acts as ready conductor, or the current descends the metal cable by means of which the elevator cage is operated. The horror of the possible stroke Is increased tenfold by the danger of its touching of the explosives that are used in blasting.
 Down shaft No. of the great aqueduct, near Cornwall-on-Hudso on July 1, plunged the bolt, first follow ing the elevator cable, then ripping it's way through steel car at the bot tom and dividing into two currents, each iof which came rolling and hiss ing down the railway tracks of the east and west tunnels, respectively.
 David Emery and Thomas Brown stood at the head of the west tunnel engaged in blasting. Brown had his back to the shaft and was in the act of dropping a stick of dynamite into a hole The bolt passed him with a slight shock. made a connection through his feet with a fuse wire in his hand and exploded the stick of dynamite. A vast mass of rock was turned up by the impromptu blast and bots men were hurled great distances, sustaining terrible injuries. The mar vel of it all was that they weren't in- stantly killed by this extraordinary coming together of unclaimed light ming and high power explosive
 Franks and Tragedies.
 Of pranks and tragedies along cleo tric wires and to power houses, troll ley carc and linemen a volume could be written.
 Lightning pays attentions to man. kind in a more delicate fashion than this. It has playfully snatched a whip from & riders hands, made off with the knitting needles of two gossiping women who were sitting knitting. and, seizing the pitchfork from the shoul- der of farm laborer, carried it off fifty yards or whereabouts and twisted the tines into a corkscrew. It has torn the music from the hands of singing youth and destroyed 1t, and has lighted g. candle and a gas jet It has caught up the scissors from the hand of a girl seated at sewing ma chine and whisked them of, while 1t lifted her bodily upon the machine, where she found herself when she re- covered from her experience. It has melting earrings without killing the wearer.
 Lightning performs queer pranks in its journeying toward the earth. The gliding Of picture frames is oftenscare- fully removed by the lightning to a distance and applied to objects never intended to receive this style of dec
 
 oration. It is reported that the gild- Ing of an altar ornament in a French church was removed and placed on a silver vase. On another occasion lightning came down the chimney of a house in which dance was being held. It entered the room where the dancers were plotting out fear of the storm outside and deposited upon them all a coat of the soot it had brought down the chimney. It did no other harm.
 The English cottage pictured above affords good example of the ex- plosion which follows when lightning penetrates closed rooms. The down. ward flash entered through the chim- ney and roof and then the explosion blew out the glass of the windows and the center woodwork of the door. The sturdy oak was blown asunder by the explosion caused by the flash igniting the gases which its own in- tense heat engendered when passing through the tree. The tree was a strong British oak. three feet in di- ameter, yet was rent completely asundeT.