The danger would be greater to a cyclist on a road. In the suburbs of Brussels, on July 2, 1904, a cyclist named Jean Ollivier, aged twenty-one years, was riding during a violent storm, when suddenly he was struck and killed on the spot.
We shall end this description of the whims and caprices of lightning by a notice of the blasting of a German military balloon. It happened in June, 1902. The aeronaut, whose car was steered by a sub-lieutenant, was held captive, and soared at a height of about 500 metres above the fortifications at Lechfeld, near Ingolstadt. All at once the aerial skiff was touched by an electric spark, caught fire, and began to descend, slowly at first, then swiftly. The aeronaut had the good luck to get off with a broken thigh. The five assistants, who worked the windlass and the telephone, also received shocks transmitted through the metal wires of the cable. They fell unconscious, but were quickly restored. This phenomenon, which is excessively rare, fittingly closes this odd collection of stories, fantastically illustrated by lightning.
A communication from Berlin also mentions that the captive balloon of the battalion of aeronauts was struck by lightning on the exercise ground at Senne. Two under-officers and a private were wounded by the explosion.
CHAPTER IX
LIGHTNING CONDUCTORS
Until comparatively recent times, as we have seen, all that was known about thunderstorms was that they occurred pretty well all over the world, and generally in either spring or summer.
While efforts were being made on our old continent to establish by long and ingenious dissertations the exact degrees of relationship between lightning and the sparks given out by machines, in America practical experiments were being set about towards solving the problems of electricity.
Franklin it was who hit upon the idea of extracting electricity from the clouds for the purpose of investigation.
This man of immortal genius, who by his achievements in science, his noble character, and his devotion to his country, has won the admiration and gratitude of posterity, was of humble origin.