We may judge of the prodigious force of the lightning by the wonderful effects it produces. The heat of the flame is such, that it burns and consumes every thing that is combustible. It even melts metals, but it often spares what is contained in them, when they are of a substance not too close to leave the passage free. It is by the velocity of the lightning that the bones of men and animals are sometimes calcined, while the flesh remains unhurt. That the strongest buildings are thrown down, trees split, or torn up by the root, the thickest of walls pierced, stones and rocks broken, and reduced to ashes. It is to the rarification and violent motion of the air, produced by the heat and velocity of the lightning, that we must attribute the death of men and animals found suffocated, without any appearance of having been struck by lightning.
“Experience teaches us, that the rain which falls when it thunders, is the most fruitful to the earth. The saline and sulphurous particles which fill the atmosphere during a storm, are drawn down by the rain, and become excellent nourishment for the plants; without mentioning the number of small worms, seeds, and little insects which are also drawn down in thunder showers, and are with the help of a microscope, visible in the drops of water.”[311]
In August, 1769, a flash of lightning fell upon the theatre at Venice, in which were more than six hundred persons. Besides killing several of the audience, it put out the candles, singed a lady’s hair, and melted the gold case of her watch and the fringe of her robe. The earrings of several ladies were melted, and the stones split; and one of the performers in the orchestra, had his violincello shattered in a thousand splinters, but received no damage himself.[312]
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 61·97.
[303] Gentleman’s Magazine.
[304] If the berries be gathered in wet weather, an hour will not be too long a time to boil them.