Part 11 (1/2)
On June 22, 1902, lightning struck, the church of Pineiro (Province of Orense, Spain) during a funeral. There were twenty-five dead and thirty-five severely wounded.
These are cases of destruction on a large scale, but we can give parallel cases where the terrible fluid seems only to amuse itself.
In fact, some people appear to enjoy the privilege of particularly attracting lightning, and of frequently receiving its visits without suffering much from its reiterated attacks.
They say that Mithridates was twice touched by lightning. The first stroke was when he was in his cradle, his swaddling clothes were singed, and the scar of a burn which he received on his forehead was covered with hair afterwards.
According to the Abbe Richard, a lady, who lived in a chateau on an elevation near Bourgogne, saw the lightning several times enter her room, divide itself into sparks of different sizes, of which the greater part attached themselves to her clothes without burning them, and left livid traces on her arms and even on her thighs. She said, when speaking on this subject, that thunder had never done her more harm than to whip her two or three times, though it fell pretty often on her chateau.
There seems to be a sort of relative immunity in women and children.
These are seldom struck. We have even several examples of children remaining safe and sound in the arms of their mothers who are struck.
Fracastor's mother had her child to her breast when she was struck by lightning. The child itself was spared.
In August, 1853, at Georgetown (Ess.e.x), Mrs. Russel, wife of the Protestant minister, was killed by lightning, while a small child which she had in her arms was unhurt.
It would seem as if lightning pitied the feeble--the women and children.
We hear of cases where people were struck several times during the same storm without succ.u.mbing to its manifold attacks.
”In two similar situations,” says Arago, ”one man, according to the nature of his const.i.tution, runs more risk than another. There are some exceptional people who are not conductors to the fulminating matter, and who neither receive nor pa.s.s on a shock. As a rule, they must be ranked among the non-conductor bodies that the lightning respects, or, at least, that it strikes rarely. Such decided differences could not exist without there being finer shades. Thus each degree of conductibility corresponds during the time of a storm to a certain degree of danger. The man who conducts like a metal will be struck as often as a metal, while the man who cuts off the communication in the chain, will have almost as little to fear as if he were made of gla.s.s or resin. Between these limits there will be found individuals whom lightning might strike as it would strike wood, stones, etc. Thus, in the phenomena of lightning, everything does not depend on the place that a man may occupy; his physical const.i.tution will have something to do with it.”
The phantasmagoria of lightning leaves us perplexed. All these observations are extraordinary and very disconcerting. The facts contradict each other, and lead us to no actual conclusion.
The _Gazette de Cologne_ gave the following case in June, 1867:--
At Czempin, a young girl of eighteen was struck by lightning while she was working near a hearth. She remained unconscious, in spite of all the efforts made to revive her. At last, acting on the advice of an old man, they placed her in a freshly dug ditch, and covered her body with earth, but in such a way as to avoid stifling her. After some hours she recovered consciousness, and was restored to health.
Sometimes lightning amuses itself nicely and innocently. It mixes in the society of men without doing them harm, or leaving any remembrance but a great fear.
One day lightning entered by the chimney into the middle of a lively dance at M. Van Gestien's, the innkeeper at Flone (Belgium). At the sight of it the dancers were petrified with terror, and not one could try and escape. But they misunderstood the intentions of the lightning, which were of the most straightforward; it only wanted to be a spoil-sport. It also had the good taste to depart quietly.
After the first excitement a profound stupefaction seized hold of the persons present; they were all transformed into n.i.g.g.e.rs. The lightning had swept the chimney, and cast the soot into the ball-room, powdering all the faces and toilettes.
Lightning might be the daughter of goblins rather than a messenger from Olympus. The following facts might confirm this impression:--
At Bayonne, on June 6, 1873, lightning knocked over a gas-burner, and threw a person down, after making her turn round three times. A family of twelve were gathered together at a table, sixty yards, at least, from the point where it burst. They were all knocked down, but without sustaining any injury.
During a violent storm, lightning entered a country house by the chimney; it lifted two big stones from the hearth, and carried them over to near the head of a child who was asleep, and placed one on each side, without grazing it or hurting the child.
And this same lightning, whose almost maternal delicacy is quite exquisite, entered another time, also by the chimney, into a house, hit a man savagely on the head, wounded him severely, and left him dead in the middle of a pool of blood. Then it took a quant.i.ty of this blood which was acc.u.mulated round his head, and went and stuck it on the ceiling of the higher story. A child who was present at this tragic scene was unhurt.
In August, 1901, an electric spark penetrated into a house in the village of Porri, near Ajaccio, and started to make the tour of the property. First it visited the second-floor rooms, without doing much damage there; then it went down to the first floor, where there were two young girls, turned them round, and burnt their legs. It continued on its course as far as the cellar, where its dazzling brightness terrified three young children who had taken refuge there. It spared two, but burned the third rather severely.
Let us finish this series of electric pictures, which depict--sometimes in a very tragic manner--the different modes of activity of one of the grandest of Nature's phenomena, by two facts, the strangeness of which surpa.s.ses everything that one can imagine.
Pliny gives the case of a Roman lady, who, having been struck by lightning during her confinement, had a stillborn child, without herself suffering the least harm.