Rafters and doors are sometimes bored through with one or two holes by the spark, and split or furrowed more or less deeply. A curious fact is that it is rare to find the slightest trace of combustion round them.
In the month of August, 1887, lightning struck the belfry of the church at Abrest (Allier), carrying off part of the roof.
It destroyed the walls of the porch, and in both sides of the swing doors bored two holes, each as big as a pigeon's egg, and as symmetrically as if they had been made by the hand of man.
The cleavage of beams is amongst the most extraordinary injuries to be observed on woodwork. Lightning works with wrought wood just as it does when the tree is in full sap: it reduces it to rags, and follows the direction of the fibres.
With what crimes lightning is charged! When it is a question of robbing a house, it spares nothing in its way.
The window-panes fly in pieces, and sometimes are thrown a long way off. Often they are melted and disappear totally.
In July, 1783, at Campo Sampiero Castello (Padua), lightning struck a building full of hay; the windows had glass in them, and the panes were melted without the hay catching fire!
A still more astonishing phenomenon is that of the total disappearance of the glass panes, observed at the Castle of Upsal, on August 24, 1760. Lightning visited this edifice and then took flight, carrying off sixteen panes out of a window. Not the smallest fragment of them was ever found.
Perhaps, as often happens, terrific heat was generated, and the glass evaporated.
If we follow the track of lightning through rooms, very singular effects may be seen on the furniture. Chests of drawers and wardrobes are gutted, and the contents pulled out and strewn about the room. In the middle of August, 1887, a house at Francines, near Limoges, was struck by lightning. It fell in a room where the master of the house was in bed. He felt a terrific shock, and saw his eiderdown pierced through and through by the perfidious fluid, and a chest of drawers with all its contents broken. Continuing on its way, the lightning demolished the door and entered another room.