For instance, a bundle of faggots lying on the hearth has been reduced to atoms by lightning, without any trace of combustion being visible.
A fireball fell on a sheaf of barley in the open field without setting it on fire, and buried itself in the ground without doing other further damage.
In certain cases the electric fluid chars wood at varying depths: the blackened layer is often very slight; sometimes, on the contrary, combustion is complete.
As for the leaves, they are unhurt as a rule. When they are attacked they shrivel up; an autumnal shade takes the place of their charming green tints; they turn brown and dry up quickly.
One of the trees in the Champs-Élysées having been struck, it was proved that all round it the ground was full of little holes. In two or three places the bark was raised from beneath; the leaves were yellow and shrivelled up as parchment would be by the fire; the upper part remained green. Everything seemed to prove that the lightning came out of the ground.
At other times the same effect may be observed on the leaves, when the trunk and roots are apparently uninjured. It is not unusual to see the tree instantly stripped of its leaves as if by some mysterious power.
The lightning acts also on the roots, as we have seen in the preceding examples. They have been seen uncovered where the ground was much disturbed, torn in strips, or cleft in more or less regular pieces.
We see that lightning does not make more ado about exhaling its baleful breath on the life of plants, than on animals and men. And moreover, that it often strikes these latter with sudden death without leaving a trace of its passing, just as sometimes it strikes the trees without leaving any exterior injury. Now and then life is not completely extinguished, and little by little the tree recovers its health. Often the vitality is not changed, one sees the tree which was struck bear fruit as before the catastrophe.
Has it not been asserted that lightning may exert a benign influence on vegetation?
This was the opinion of the ancients.