Thunder and Lightning Part 11

On June 22, 1902, lightning struck, the church of Pineiro (Province of Orense, Spain) during a funeral. There were twenty-five dead and thirty-five severely wounded.

These are cases of destruction on a large scale, but we can give parallel cases where the terrible fluid seems only to amuse itself.

In fact, some people appear to enjoy the privilege of particularly attracting lightning, and of frequently receiving its visits without suffering much from its reiterated attacks.

They say that Mithridates was twice touched by lightning. The first stroke was when he was in his cradle, his swaddling clothes were singed, and the scar of a burn which he received on his forehead was covered with hair afterwards.

According to the Abbe Richard, a lady, who lived in a chateau on an elevation near Bourgogne, saw the lightning several times enter her room, divide itself into sparks of different sizes, of which the greater part attached themselves to her clothes without burning them, and left livid traces on her arms and even on her thighs. She said, when speaking on this subject, that thunder had never done her more harm than to whip her two or three times, though it fell pretty often on her chateau.

There seems to be a sort of relative immunity in women and children.

These are seldom struck. We have even several examples of children remaining safe and sound in the arms of their mothers who are struck.

Fracastor's mother had her child to her breast when she was struck by lightning. The child itself was spared.

In August, 1853, at Georgetown (Ess.e.x), Mrs. Russel, wife of the Protestant minister, was killed by lightning, while a small child which she had in her arms was unhurt.

It would seem as if lightning pitied the feeble--the women and children.

We hear of cases where people were struck several times during the same storm without succ.u.mbing to its manifold attacks.

"In two similar situations," says Arago, "one man, according to the nature of his const.i.tution, runs more risk than another. There are some exceptional people who are not conductors to the fulminating matter, and who neither receive nor pa.s.s on a shock. As a rule, they must be ranked among the non-conductor bodies that the lightning respects, or, at least, that it strikes rarely. Such decided differences could not exist without there being finer shades. Thus each degree of conductibility corresponds during the time of a storm to a certain degree of danger. The man who conducts like a metal will be struck as often as a metal, while the man who cuts off the communication in the chain, will have almost as little to fear as if he were made of gla.s.s or resin. Between these limits there will be found individuals whom lightning might strike as it would strike wood, stones, etc. Thus, in the phenomena of lightning, everything does not depend on the place that a man may occupy; his physical const.i.tution will have something to do with it."

The phantasmagoria of lightning leaves us perplexed. All these observations are extraordinary and very disconcerting. The facts contradict each other, and lead us to no actual conclusion.

The _Gazette de Cologne_ gave the following case in June, 1867:--

At Czempin, a young girl of eighteen was struck by lightning while she was working near a hearth. She remained unconscious, in spite of all the efforts made to revive her. At last, acting on the advice of an old man, they placed her in a freshly dug ditch, and covered her body with earth, but in such a way as to avoid stifling her. After some hours she recovered consciousness, and was restored to health.

Sometimes lightning amuses itself nicely and innocently. It mixes in the society of men without doing them harm, or leaving any remembrance but a great fear.

One day lightning entered by the chimney into the middle of a lively dance at M. Van Gestien's, the innkeeper at Flone (Belgium). At the sight of it the dancers were petrified with terror, and not one could try and escape. But they misunderstood the intentions of the lightning, which were of the most straightforward; it only wanted to be a spoil-sport. It also had the good taste to depart quietly.

After the first excitement a profound stupefaction seized hold of the persons present; they were all transformed into n.i.g.g.e.rs. The lightning had swept the chimney, and cast the soot into the ball-room, powdering all the faces and toilettes.

Lightning might be the daughter of goblins rather than a messenger from Olympus. The following facts might confirm this impression:--

At Bayonne, on June 6, 1873, lightning knocked over a gas-burner, and threw a person down, after making her turn round three times. A family of twelve were gathered together at a table, sixty yards, at least, from the point where it burst. They were all knocked down, but without sustaining any injury.

During a violent storm, lightning entered a country house by the chimney; it lifted two big stones from the hearth, and carried them over to near the head of a child who was asleep, and placed one on each side, without grazing it or hurting the child.

And this same lightning, whose almost maternal delicacy is quite exquisite, entered another time, also by the chimney, into a house, hit a man savagely on the head, wounded him severely, and left him dead in the middle of a pool of blood. Then it took a quant.i.ty of this blood which was acc.u.mulated round his head, and went and stuck it on the ceiling of the higher story. A child who was present at this tragic scene was unhurt.

In August, 1901, an electric spark penetrated into a house in the village of Porri, near Ajaccio, and started to make the tour of the property. First it visited the second-floor rooms, without doing much damage there; then it went down to the first floor, where there were two young girls, turned them round, and burnt their legs. It continued on its course as far as the cellar, where its dazzling brightness terrified three young children who had taken refuge there. It spared two, but burned the third rather severely.

Let us finish this series of electric pictures, which depict--sometimes in a very tragic manner--the different modes of activity of one of the grandest of Nature's phenomena, by two facts, the strangeness of which surpa.s.ses everything that one can imagine.

Pliny gives the case of a Roman lady, who, having been struck by lightning during her confinement, had a stillborn child, without herself suffering the least harm.

Another:--

The Abbe Richard, in his _Histoire de l'Air_, gives a more extraordinary case still. At Altenbourg, in Saxony, in July, 1713, lightning struck a woman who was expecting her confinement. She was delivered some hours afterwards of a child who was half burnt, and whose body was all black. The mother recovered her health.

We can neither define nor delimit the power of lightning. Sometimes merciful, often cruel, it const.i.tutes in the universality of its actions, one of Nature's most terrible scourges.

CHAPTER VI

THE EFFECTS OF LIGHTNING ON ANIMALS

Animals, even more than mankind, attract the fire of heaven. Lightning has a certain regard for human beings, which it seems to lose entirely when it is a case of the humble and faithful servants that Nature has given us.

And, between ourselves, thunder is not always as absurd as it appears.

Its proceedings are sometimes even very tactful. Though it may often strike innocent victims blindly and ferociously; yet it seems at times to show a certain amount of intelligence. Thus we find among our many examples a strange fact, which will serve to reconcile our thoughts a little to thunder.

On June 20, 1872, in Kentucky State, we have already cited the case of the n.i.g.g.e.r Norris, who was going to be hanged for the murder of a mulatto companion, and who, just as he was putting his foot on the fatal platform, was struck by lightning, and thus spared the sheriff the trouble of hurling him into eternity.

Here was a case where thunder was full of justice, and we cannot praise it too much.

Arago gives another case where a chief of brigands was shut up in a Bavarian prison, together with his accomplices. No doubt he was encouraging their arrogance by his blasphemies--the stone to which he was attached acting as a tribune for him--when he was suddenly struck by lightning while haranguing his disciples. He fell dead. The iron manacles had brought on the disaster, but the brigands did not stop to think of this natural cause; they were just as terrified as if the iron had not been there, and the lightning had chosen its victim with intelligence.

Here is another instance--

The favourite of a prince had obtained from him a written recognition of her son. She counted on this to give trouble to the State after the death of her benefactor. She enclosed it carefully in a chest, and went and buried it deep in a wood, hoping to render all search useless, if the prince should change his mind.

But behold, the lightning intervened; the tree was struck, and the open chest was thrown on the highway, where it was found by a peasant.

Animals are worse treated than men, but better than plants and inorganic bodies. What are the causes of this difference? Can we attribute it to physical predisposition? But this has not yet been proved. Experience shows that sparks directed on the vertebral column are particularly dangerous. Now, the backs of quadrupeds are greatly exposed to mortal strokes from the celestial fire.

Their fur or their plumage, which form an intrinsic part of their bodies, put them more or less in the situation of a man who, to protect himself from inclemency, should envelop himself in his hair, supposing this to be long enough and rich enough to cover him decently.

Animals rarely survive when struck. When they do not die on the spot, they succ.u.mb soon after to their wounds. The ancients have remarked on this.

"Man," says Pliny, "is the only animal that lightning does not always kill; all the others die on the spot. It is a prerogative granted to him by Nature, though so many animals surpa.s.s him in strength." And, further on, he adds that amongst birds the eagle is never struck. This has given it the name of _porte foudre_.

But these a.s.sertions are slightly exaggerated, and we can quote a certain number of examples of animals which have resisted the baneful influence of the electric current.

In 1901, a horse was touched by lightning, which was certainly attracted by the iron of his shoe. It traced two deep trails right along the animal's leg, where the skin was abrased, and appeared as though it were cauterized. These two lines joined together at the fold of the ham, and then formed a single furrow, all sign of which was lost in the abdominal region. The rest of the body was unhurt, and the animal sustained no further harm after being struck than it would have done if an incompetent veterinary surgeon had fired him too severely.

On July 4, 1884, at Castres, ten persons and nine horses were struck by lightning; all survived the accident.

On June 9, 1886, in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, three cows and a little girl, who was in charge of them, were knocked over by a violent shock. The child and the beasts soon got up. Only an ox was killed some distance from there.

Very often horses are stunned by the discharge on animals which are killed, but after a time they recover. This phenomenon has also been observed in other animals. For instance, five or six pigs which were in a cage in the prow of a s.h.i.+p were killed by an electric discharge, whilst others which were only separated from them by a cloth were saved.

But the cases are rare in which animals do not succ.u.mb to lightning.