Thunder and Lightning

by Camille Flammarion

"M. Joseph Elisson, of Pertius, aged about thirty-eight, was struck by lightning on June 17. Called to attend to him at about two in the afternoon, I found some superficial burns forming a trail, which began near the teat of his left breast, at the level of his waistcoat pocket, in which there was a watch (which had not stopped), and went down towards the navel, then turned boldly to the right towards the iliac spine and down the outer side of his right leg as far as the ankle, at the level of which his boot, made of strong leather, had been split open.

"To the right, a little outside the vertical line passing the teat, there was imprinted in vivid red—the red of the burn—a picture of a tree. The foot of it was on a level with the edge of the ribs, the top went slightly above the teat. This picture was absolutely vertical. Its outlines stood out very distinctly from the white skin. It was composed of bold, clearly defined lines, about a demimillimetre in width. Neither waistcoat nor shirt were burnt or marked in any way to correspond with it. Other representations of tree branches were reproduced higher up on the breast, but not so distinctly in the midst of a uniform redness. Not having by me my camera, I made a sketch of the tree, which was marvellously distinct, leaving the taking of a photograph until next day. Next day, when I returned with my camera, the picture was still clearly visible, but it had faded a good deal, lost in the colour of the skin, and no longer to be reproduced by photography. I regretted bitterly not having taken it the day before. I regret this all the more now that you have done me the honour of writing to me on the subject, and I am glad to be able to send you my sketch of the picture, which is correct as to dimensions, and which represents what I saw as accurately as I could make it.

"Dr. G. Tournatoire."

Here is a facsimile of the sketch enclosed by the doctor.

It is somewhat like the shape of a poplar. There is nothing to suggest that we have here a case of swollen veins, or arteries made conspicuous by a flow of blood, nor of a tree-like form due to blood vessels, in which the blood has taken on a more or less marked aspect. On the other hand, it is certainly not much easier to recognize in it a photograph of a more or less distant tree. In this state of uncertainty on the subject, I wrote again to Dr. Tournatoire, and begged of him to go to the scene of the incident and to make a plan of the ground, and take a photograph of the view. Here is the doctor's reply: —

"This plan can be reproduced by a few typographical lines in such a way as to show clearly how things happened—

"The square represents the cabin in which the two workmen took refuge. They were sitting almost opposite each other on the seats marked A and B. There is a flash of lightning. One of the men is knocked over, and bears on his right side a picture of the poplar P, which stands one hundred metres away, and is visible by A through the door O, of which the width is one metre. Behind this poplar stands a big pine, a branch of which is also depicted on the man's body. By this same stroke of lightning the other worker, seated at B, is thrown out of the cabin three metres by an opening D, about forty centimetres wide. The two men are alive, and have come out of it with a few days' rest. They saw nothing, heard nothing, and can remember nothing."

In the photographs taken by Dr. Tournatoire it is not clear which is the tree, for the poplar, P, does not stand out alone. As the cabin stands under the shade of a pine tree, one is disposed to ask whether the lightning did not strike this pine? But judging by the position of the trees relatively to the man struck, the most likely hypothesis is that the electric discharge came from the point P towards A, and that the poplar as well as the adjacent pine formed a sort of screen, and reproduced their reflection by the agency of some unknown constituent of these Ceraunic Rays, which enable them to photograph things in this way through clothes on to the human body.

This assuredly is a more extraordinary effect than those obtained by the cathodic rays or anti-cathodic rays, of which science seems equally unable to give any explanation.