MIDNIGHT PHOTOGRAPH OF LIGHTNING FLASH IN SHANGHAI HARBOUR.
Photographs of lightning are no longer novel; but our picture of a flash taken at midnight in Shanghai Harbour is one of the most remarkable ever seen. It is some distance behind the anchored steamer, but the reflection on the water is so vivid as to give it the appearance of moonlight.
The tornado is a phenomenon we can very well do without, and we sincerely hope the clerk of the weather will give us ample notice of the very faintest indication that one of these inanimate monsters is coming our way.
The tornado is soon over, it is true, but hailstorms are to be preferred. On May 27th, 1893, a storm of this nature put in an appearance at Wellington, Kansas, and practically wrecked the whole city. A horse was picked up, stable and all, and blown some hundreds of yards to leeward. The stable was smashed, but curiously enough the horse came down on his feet and escaped unhurt.
CLOTHES OF MAN STRUCK BY LIGHTNING.
In the same storm the Lutheran church was lifted bodily from its foundations into the air, and fell, bottom upwards, on top of a new residence 100 feet away, as it appears in the photograph.
In another photograph are some collapsed houses, the result of a similar storm in Lawrence, U.S.A.
Although our own Meteorological Office and Society have no such startling instances to record, yet they possess much data of equal interest.