Part 6 (1/2)

On Sunday, August 19, 1900, several people were a.s.sembled in a room in the chateau of the Baron de France at Maintenay (Pas-de-Calais), when there was a violent storm raging over the country.

Suddenly there appeared in the midst of the eleven people who were there, a globe of blue fire about the size of an infant's head, which quietly crossed the room, touching four people on its way. None of them were injured. An awful explosion was heard at the moment when the electric ball disappeared through an open door in front of the great staircase.

On August 3, 1809, a fireball struck the house of a Mr. David Sutton, not far from Newcastle-on-Tyne. Eight people were having tea in the drawing-room when a violent clap of thunder knocked down the chimney.

Immediately after they saw on the ground, at the door opposite the fireplace, the brilliant visitor which announced itself in the sonorous voice of Jupiter the thunderer. It remained discreetly at the entrance of the room, no doubt waiting for the sign to advance. No one making a move, it came into the middle of the room, and there burst with a crash, throwing out fiery grains like aeroliths.

The spectacle must have been magnificent--but, we must acknowledge, rather disquieting.

On September 27, 1772, at Besancon, a voluminous fireball crossed over a corn-shop and the ward of a hospital full of nurses and children.

This time again the lightning was merciful--it spared nurses and children, and went and drowned itself in the Doubs.

Nearly thirty years before, in July, 1744, it showed the same regard for an honest German peasant woman. She was occupied in the kitchen superintending the family meal, when, after a terrible clap of thunder, she saw a fireball the size of a fist come down the chimney, pa.s.s between her feet without hurting her, and continue on its course without burning or even upsetting the spinning-wheel and other objects on the floor.

Much frightened, the young woman tried to escape; she threw herself towards the door and opened it, when the fireball at once followed her, played about her feet, went into the next room, which opened out-of-doors, crossed it, and through the door into the yard.

It went round the yard, entered a barn by an open door, climbed the wall opposite, and reaching the edge of the roof, burst with such a terrific noise that the peasant woman fainted. The barn at once took fire and was reduced to cinders.

Towards the middle of the last century, March 3, 1835, the steeple of Crailsheim was set on fire by lightning. The guardian's daughter, aged twenty years, was at this moment in her room and had her back turned to the window, when her young brother saw a fireball enter by the window-sill and descend on to his sister's back, giving her a sudden shock all over her body. The young girl then saw at her feet a quant.i.ty of small flames, which went towards the kitchen, the door of which had been opened, and set fire to a pile of mossy wood. There was no further damage than this attempt at incendiarism, which was easily extinguished.

Occasionally a fireball seems to take a malignant pleasure in hurling itself like a fury against lightning conductors; but instead of quietly impaling itself like the linear lightning, and breathing its last sigh in a prolonged roar, it struggles, and comes forth victorious from this curious contest.

There are many cases of fireb.a.l.l.s playing about the lightning conductors without being caught.

In 1777, a fireball shot from the clouds on to the point of the lightning conductor on the Observatory of Padua. The conductor, which consisted of an iron chain, was broken at its junction with the stem.

However, it sent on the discharge.

Some years later, in 1792, a huge ball of lightning struck one of the two conductors on the house of M. Haller at Villiers la Garenne. This conductor was much injured by the audacious a.s.sailant, and so was the framework of the house; the keen fluid had damaged the metallic gutters.

At this point I must add that lightning conductors are of recent creation. Nor would it be surprising if there were defective ones which could not a.s.sure an efficient protection.

However, much later, on December 20, 1845, the same phenomenon was observed at the chateau of Bortyvon, near Vire. There, again, the fireball, ignoring the danger to which it was exposing itself, flung itself on a lightning conductor placed in the centre of the chateau.

It was spared, but the chateau suffered greatly. The electric ball descended from both sides of the metallic stem, causing a great deal of damage along its path. On touching the ground it expanded, and many persons affirm that they saw what was like a huge cask of fire rolling along the ground.

In truth, ball lightning seems in a certain measure to escape the influence of lightning conductors.

On September 4, 1903, towards ten o'clock in the evening, M. Laurence Rotch, director of the Observatory of Blue Hill (U.S.), happening to be in Paris, made the following curious observation from the Rond-point of the Champs Elysees.

Looking in the direction of the Eiffel Tower, he saw the summit of the edifice struck by white lightning coming from the zenith. At the same moment a fireball, less dazzling than the lightning, slowly descended from the summit to the second platform. It appeared to be about one yard in diameter, and to be situated in the middle of the tower, taking less than two seconds to cover a distance of about 100 yards.

Then it disappeared. The next day the observer ascertained, on visiting the tower, that it had actually been struck by lightning twice on the previous day.

It is to be noted that the meteor did not follow the conductor; but, after all, is not the whole tower itself the most powerful conductor imaginable? Would not the enormous ma.s.ses of iron used in its construction neutralize the attraction of the thin metallic rods, effectual for the protection of ordinary buildings, but incapable, one would think, of competing with the attractive force of this immense metallic framework?

Here are some cases where globular lightning has struck bells or telegraph wires, which it has followed with docility.

Several times it has been seen poised like a bird on a telegraph wire near a railway-station, and has then quietly disappeared.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE EIFFEL TOWER AS A COLOSSAL LIGHTNING CONDUCTOR.