Thunder and Lightning Part 7

This fact incontestably proves the presence of ponderable matter in clouds, which is not violently projected by an explosion in the bolis, nor accompanied by a noisy electric discharge.

We are still far from understanding the interesting problem of the formation and nature of ball lightning. Instead of denying it, men of science ought to study it, because it is certainly one of the most remarkable of the curiosities of atmospheric electricity.

We must begin by finding out the exact facts, which are extraordinary enough to captivate our attention. The theories will follow.

CHAPTER V

THE EFFECTS OF LIGHTNING ON MANKIND

The destructive work of lightning in every form is immense. A formidable and invisible world skirts the earth--an enchanted world, more wonderful than any Eastern legend--an unknown ocean, whose immaterial presence is constantly brought before us by the most fearful electric conflagrations.

Even to-day the brilliancy of lightning hides itself from us in the darkness of impenetrable mystery. But we feel that there is an immeasurable power, an unimaginable force which rules us.

We are, in fact, but puny beings in comparison with this magic force, and the ancients were wise when they made the King of the G.o.ds responsible for the actions of lightning. He alone in His splendour and sovereignty could exercise such an empire over our modest planet--above all, over man's imagination.

Science slowly follows the centuries in their ascending march towards progress. At present our knowledge of ball lightning is limited, and we have only the princ.i.p.al facts of nature to contribute to the elucidation of the problem.

In increasing our observations, and in comparing those which are a.n.a.logous, we may hope, if not to arrive at an immediate conclusion, at least to help in the work of discovering what laws govern this subtle and imponderable fluid.

Here it will strike a man dead without leaving a trace; there it will only attack the clothes and insinuate itself as far as the skin without even grazing it. It will burn the lining of a garment, and leave the material of which it is made intact. Sometimes it profits by the bewilderment caused by its dazzling light to entirely undress a person, and leave him naked and inanimate, but with no external wound, not even a scratch.

We find as many peculiarities as facts.

Some of the actions of lightning remind one of the fantastic stories of Hoffmann and Edgar Poe, but nature is more wonderful than the imagination of man, and lightning remains supreme in its phantasmagoria.

Thunder seems to play with the ignorance of man; its crimes and jests would have been ascribed to the devil in olden days. We submit to the effects without being able to determine the cause which directs them.

It would seem as if lightning were a subtle being--a medium between the unconscious force which lives in plants and the conscious force in animals. It is like an elemental spirit, keen, capricious, malicious or stupid, far-seeing or blind, wilful or indifferent, pa.s.sing from one extreme to another, and of a unique and terrifying character. We see it twisting into s.p.a.ce, moving with astonis.h.i.+ng dexterity among men, appearing and disappearing with the rapidity ...

of lightning ... it is impossible to define its nature.

At all events, it is a great mistake to trifle with it. It means running great risks. It resents being interfered with, and those who try to probe into its domain are generally rather cruelly put in their place.

It was an indiscretion of this kind which cost Dr. Richmann his life.

He had fixed an insulated iron rod from the roof of his house to his laboratory; this conducted the atmospheric electricity to him, and he measured its intensity every day. On August 6, 1753, in the middle of a violent storm, he was keeping at a distance from the rod in order to avoid the powerful sparks, and was waiting for the time to measure it, when, his engraver entering suddenly, he took a few steps towards him which brought him too near the conductor. A globe of blue fire, the size of a fist, struck him on the head and stretched him stone dead.

This beginning to the study of physics was hardly encouraging.

The visitations of lightning are so numerous that it would naturally be impossible to describe them all in this small collection. We must, therefore, choose among them, but here we encounter a great difficulty. Among the thousands of _tours de force_ and of dexterity accomplished by lightning, which should we take and which leave? The selection is very difficult, as it means leaving out a large number of curious examples with a good many very interesting observations.

We will choose the most important--those of which the authenticity appears incontestable, and which contain the most precise details. We will group together those among them which present points of resemblance. This approximate cla.s.sification will give us a sufficiently complete picture for the harmony of this study.

One of the most astonis.h.i.+ng actions of lightning is certainly that of leaving the victim in the very att.i.tude in which he was surprised by death.

Cardan gives an extraordinary example of this kind.

In the course of a violent storm, eight reapers, who were taking their meal under an oak, were struck, all eight of them, by the same flash of lightning, the noise of which could be heard a long way off. When the pa.s.sers-by approached to see what had happened, the reapers thus suddenly petrified by death, appeared to be continuing their peaceful meal. One held his gla.s.s, another was carrying the bread to his mouth, a third had his hand on the dish. Death had seized them all in the position which they occupied when the explosion occurred.

We hear of many similar cases to this.

Here is one of a young woman who no doubt was struck by lightning in the position in which she was found after the accident. It was during a violent storm on July 16, 1866; she was alone in the house at Saint-Romain-les-Atheux (Loire), and outside the thunder rolled fearfully. When her parents came back from the fields, they found a sad sight. The young woman had been killed by lightning. They found her kneeling in a corner of the room with her head buried in her hands; she had no trace of a wound. Her child of four months, who was in bed in the same room, was only lightly touched.

Quite recently, on May 24, 1904, at Charolles (Saone-et-Loire), a certain Mlle. Moreau, who lived at Lesmes, was waiting for the end of a storm in a grocer's shop where she had been making some purchases.

Several people were gathered round the fireplace. They felt a great movement following a violent clap of thunder. The sensation having pa.s.sed, every one prepared to go. Mlle. Moreau alone remained seated, and did not move. She had been struck by the fluid, which had made a hole under her right ear and come out by the left!

The petrifying action of the electric fluid is so rapid that hors.e.m.e.n who have been struck have remained on horseback and been carried a long way from the place of the accident without being unsaddled.

According to Abbe Richard, towards the end of the eighteenth century, the procurator of the Seminary of Troyes was coming home on horseback when he was struck by lightning. A brother who followed him, not perceiving this, thought that he was asleep when he saw him reeling.

When he tried to awaken him, he found he was dead.

The following observation is very remarkable on account of the special att.i.tudes preserved by the bodies which had been struck:--

A vessel which was at Port Mahon was struck at the time when the crew were dispersed over the yards to furl the sails. Fifteen sailors who were scattered on the bowsprit were killed or burned in the twinkling of an eye. Some were thrown into the water; others, bent dead across the yard-arm, remained in the position they had occupied before the accident.

Often the corpses of people who have been struck have been found either sitting or standing.

At the approach of a storm a vine-dresser was seated under a nut tree which was planted near a hedge: soon afterwards, when it had ceased raining and the thunder was quiet, his two sisters, who had been taking shelter under the hedge, saw him sitting, and called to him to go back to work, but he did not reply; on going up to him, they found him dead.

In 1853, in the neighbourhood of Asti, a priest who was struck while dining remained in his place.

In 1698, a s.h.i.+p was struck at about four o'clock in the morning, not far from Saint-Pierre. At daybreak a sailor was found sitting stone dead at the bow of the s.h.i.+p, with his eyes open and the whole body in such a natural att.i.tude that he seemed to be alive. He had suffered no injury either external or internal.

Dr. Boudin describes a still more surprising case. A woman was struck while she was in the act of plucking a poppy. The body was found standing, only slightly bent and with the flower still in her hand. It is hard to understand how a human body could remain standing, slightly bent, without a support to prevent its falling. This case is a contradiction to all the laws of equilibrium. But with such a fantastic agent as that with which we are dealing, nothing is surprising--we may expect anything. Thus--

On August 2, 1862, lightning struck the entrance pavilion of the Prince Eugene barracks in Paris just when the soldiers were going to bed. All those who were lying down suddenly found themselves standing, and those who were standing were thrown on the ground.

In the preceding examples the victims struck dead are not disfigured by the fulgurant force. They preserve a deceptive appearance of life.

The catastrophe is so sudden that the face has no time to a.s.sume a sad expression. No contraction of the muscles reveals a transition in the pa.s.sage of life and death. The eyes and mouth are open as though in a state of watching. When the colour of the flesh is preserved, the illusion is complete. But when we approach these statues of flesh--so lately animated with vital fire, now mummified by celestial fire--we are surprised on touching them to find that they crumble to ashes.

The garments are intact, the body presents no difference, it keeps the att.i.tude it had at the supreme moment, but it is entirely burnt, consumed. Thus--

At Vic-sur-Aisne (Aisne) in 1838, in the middle of a violent storm, three soldiers took shelter under a lime tree. Lightning struck them all dead at one blow. All the same, they all three remained standing in their original positions as though they had not been touched by the electric fluid: their clothes were intact! After the storm some pa.s.sers-by noticed them, spoke to them without receiving an answer, and went up to touch them, when they fell pulverized into a heap of ashes.

This experience is not unique, and even the ancients remarked that people who were struck crumbled to dust.

Here is a similar case, no less curious--

On June 13, 1893, at Rodez, a shepherd named Desmazes, seeing that a storm was threatening, collected his beasts and drove them quickly towards the farm. When he was just there, he was struck by lightning.

His body, which was completely incinerated, preserved a natural appearance.

It is by this complete incineration and the probable volatilization of the cinders that certain authors explain the sudden disappearance of some of those who have been struck.

Legend attributes the mysterious death of Romulus to a similar cause.