Prof. Tyndall relates his sensations upon having a powerful electric discharge pass through him: “Life was absolutely blotted out for a very sensible interval, without a trace of pain. In a second or so consciousness returned. * * * The intellectual consciousness of my position was restored with singular rapidity, but not so the optical consciousness. * * * The appearance which my body presented to myself was that of a number of separate pieces. The arms, for example, were detached from the trunk and suspended in the air. In fact, memory and the power of reasoning appeared to be complete long before the optic nerve was restored to healthy action. But what I wish chiefly to dwell upon here, is the absolute painlessness of the shock; and there can not be a doubt that to a person struck dead by lightning the passage from life to death occurs without consciousness being in the least degree implicated. It is an abrupt stoppage of sensation, unaccompanied by a pang.”
There is another class of peculiar freaks performed by this subtle force, which the following instances illustrate. Prof. Perty tells of a thunder storm in Switzerland, when “the lightning sprang from a pear tree upon the verandah of a house, where it killed a boy and wounded his mother. The pear tree and the house were burned down. On the arm of the wounded woman a remarkably elegant impression of twigs and leaves, like a photographic copy of part of the pear tree, was found.”
There are several cases noted of persons sitting near windows when lightning flashing near by has produced an exact likeness of the person, as though engraved on the glass.
“In 1825 the lightning fell upon the brigantine El Buon Servo, which lay at anchor in the bay of Armiro, at the mouth of the Adriatic Sea. The superstitious Ionian sailors generally fasten a horseshoe to the foremasts of their ships, probably fancying that this simple means affords them protection against the evil intentions of wizards and witches. Of course, the Buon Servo was not without its horseshoe. Antonio Teodoro, of Scarpanto, was sitting near the mast, when it was struck by lightning. He was killed at once. No marks of combustion were found on his body, nor were his clothes torn; but on his back was found the distinct impression of a horseshoe of the same size as that which was nailed to the mast.”
In the records of the Academy of Sciences, we find that “the Signora Morosa, a lady of Lugano, who sat near a window during a thunder storm, received a shock which did her no further injury; but a flower which stood in the passage of the electric fluid was distinctly pictured on her thigh.” She carried the mark to her grave.
Lightning is one of the most useful purifiers of the atmosphere. There can be no doubt that large quantities of noxious exhalations are destroyed by electrical discharges. Its beneficial effects in this respect have been long noted. “Both Hippocrates and Galenus remark that the water which falls during a thunder storm is more healthy to drink than that which proceeds from a uniformly clouded sky: and Plutarch mentions that the rain from a thunder cloud is considered as more favorable to vegetation, and communicates to plants a particular flavor.” There are also on record a number of instances in which persons long in poor health, on receiving light shocks, have greatly improved in health and appearance. Similar results have been noticed in plant life. Doubtless such cases as these gave rise to the belief of the ancients, that to be struck by lightning was to be favored by the gods.
This opinion was especially noted in the case of Mithridates. Slightly wounded in the forehead by lightning when a child, he escaped unhurt later in life, when his sword was totally destroyed. These facts caused him to be held in superstitious fear by the Romans. And Quintus Julius Eburnus became consul, B. C., mainly because of a similar mark of divine favor. Those who were killed by a flash were believed to be not subject to decay, and were robed in white and buried where they fell. So also those whose tombs lightning struck were peculiarly honored of Heaven. Lord Byron alludes to this in his stanza upon the bust of Ariosto on the poet’s tomb at Ferrara, which had been struck by lightning:
“The lightning rent from Ariosto’s bust
The iron crown of laurel’s mimicked leaves,
Nor was the ominous element unjust,
For the true laurel wreath which glory weaves
Is of the tree no bolt of thunder cleaves,
And the false semblance but disgraced his brow;
Yet, still, if fondly superstition grieves,
Know, that the lightning sanctifies below
Whate’er it strikes—yon head is doubly sacred now.”
The identification of electricity with lightning is a comparatively recent occurrence. The story of Benjamin Franklin, patron saint of the devout lightning-rod agent, is too familiar to require repetition. Yet, the idea was first broached in the latter part of the seventeenth century by two students of the new force, more than fifty years before Franklin’s experiments.
Thunder clouds usually float from two thousand to five thousand feet from the earth; but there is one case on record of two priests being killed by lightning from a cloud only thirty yards from the ground; while another thunder storm is noted as having occurred eighteen thousand feet from the earth. As sound travels about one thousand and ninety feet per second, any one may ascertain the distance of a flash by noting the time that elapses ere the thunder is heard. All existing records fail to tell of thunder heard more than four miles; while the cannonading at Paris in 1871 could be heard one hundred and five miles; and Waterloo could be heard one hundred and fifty miles.