A clergyman named Butler was a witness of the following incident, which took place at Everdon. Ten harvest-men took refuge under a lodge on the approach of a storm. There was a thunderclap, and in a moment four of them were killed by lightning. One of them was found dead, still holding between finger and thumb a pinch of snuff he had been in the act of taking. A second had one hand upon the head of a small dog, also killed, and still sitting upon his knees, and in the other hand a piece of bread; a third was sitting, his eyes open, facing in the direction from which the storm came.
At Castellane, in August, 1898, during a violent storm, a flock of sheep was struck by lightning while crossing the mountain of Peyresy. Seventy-five of them were killed. The shepherd escaped. The sheep probably were all wet from the rain, and clinging together in one great mass. In the same month a pond at Vauxdîmes (Côte-d'Or) was demolished, and all the fish in it killed.
Quite recently, a young man at Franxault (Côte-d'Or) was killed by lightning on his way home from work. All the nails were found to have been torn out of his shoes, and the links of his silver watch-chain were all moulded together. To fuse silver in this way a heat of 957 degrees is needed!
On July 5, 1883, at Buffon (Côte-d'Or), a woman had one of her earrings melted in the same way, but she was not killed. On the same day at Void (Meuse) two workmen, who had taken shelter under a willow, were thrown a distance of four yards without being killed.
On August 10, of the same year, at Chanvres (Yonne), a vine-dresser was struck by lightning and killed, but his heart continued to beat for thirty hours.
Dr. Gaultier de Claubry was struck by lightning, with the extraordinary result that his beard was taken off him, roots and all, so that it never grew again.
At Fresneaux (Oise), a young girl of twenty, Mlle. Laure Leloup, had her head shorn by lightning. A wide furrow was to be traced on the crown of her head, caused by the electric fluid. Her hair was removed right down to the skin as though by a razor.
On September 4, 1898, a flash of lightning lit up all the electric lamps in the Prefecture of Lyon.
Really it is extraordinary the queer things lightning will do! Death in one case, an innocent practical joke in another! I have hundreds of quaint records before me. Impossible to deduce any kind of law from them all. You are tempted to believe that the electric current has a brain.
A young woman was picking cherries off a rather tall cherry-tree. A young man stood underneath. The young woman was struck by lightning, and fell dead. This was in July, 1885.