Part 14 (2/2)

Laboratories are sometimes transformed into small cemeteries, where lie poor guineapigs, frogs which have been quartered, and mutilated rabbits. But what is the ordinary lot of these last when science spares them? The chief point is not to let the innocent victims suffer.

Can we eat with impunity the flesh of animals which have been struck?

Several people say Yes, many say No. Both are right.

Putting aside the question of the rapid putrefaction to which these bodies are nearly always subjected, the flesh of animals killed by fulguration has often been found unhealthy and uneatable.

A veterinary surgeon who was commissioned to examine the bodies of two cows and an ox which had been struck in a stable, declared that their flesh could not be eaten without danger.

On the other hand, Franklin recounts how some people ate fowls which had been killed by the electric spark--”this funny little lightning”--and cooked immediately after death. The flesh of these capons was excellent and particularly tender, and the ill.u.s.trious inventor of lightning-conductors concluded by proposing that we should follow this proceeding in order to ensure our fresh meat being as clean as possible when served at table.

We think, however, that it is more prudent to sacrifice the meat which has been struck, as it has been proved that in certain cases the decomposition is very rapid.

Up to now we have seen all animals, man included, as victims of lightning: it is the general rule.

Nevertheless, we often meet beings in this world, men, animals, or plants, which try to distinguish themselves from others by some sort of originality. This appears to be the case with the electric fish, whose existence seems to be dedicated to the wors.h.i.+p of Jupiter.

These curious fish have received the gift from Nature of being able to hurl lightning to a certain distance.

This is how they set to work. A little fish in search of food goes too near this terrible enemy, who at once sets his living tail in motion.

Fascinating it with his eye, he renders it immovable, and lets fly repeated discharges to it. After a minute, the poor fish is overcome, and allows itself to be snapped up by its pitiless adversary without resistance.

Certain rivers in Asia and Africa and the depths of the Pacific Ocean, in which these curious animals live, are often the scenes of terrible dramas, caused by the presence of these lightning fish, which are divided into five species: the tetrodon, the trichiure, the silurus, the raie torpille (cramp-fish), and the gymnote (electric eel). These aquatic lightnings work terrible havoc among the inhabitants of Neptune's kingdom. They use their influence over men as well as fish.

If you touch a torpille, you feel a shock strong enough to benumb and paralyze the arm for some minutes.

A curious experiment was tried: eight people formed a chain, and one of them, with a piece of metallic wire, touched the back of a torpille which had been imported. They all felt the shock.

If thunder had elected to be domiciled anywhere but in its own clouds, it would seem as if it would be in the organism of these curious fish.

Unfortunately, in our international relations, humanity has invented a much more dangerous torpille (torpedo)!

CHAPTER VII

THE EFFECTS OF LIGHTNING ON TREES AND PLANTS

Nearly two thousand years ago, Pliny wrote, ”As regards products of the earth, lightning never strikes the bay tree.” And this is why the Roman emperors, in fear always of the fire of heaven, crowned themselves with laurels. This belief was almost universal in ancient times, and survived for many centuries.

But every new century has proclaimed the immunity from lightning of some one member of the vegetable world, though impartial research has now established the fact that there is no such absolute privilege. If certain trees are rarely struck, that is, perhaps, due less to its species than to its size, its hygrometrical condition, and to other influences which it is still difficult to specify; for lightning, as we have seen, has capricious habits which we have not yet succeeded in explaining.

Thus the bay tree has lost its proud position in this respect, and has had to take its place amongst the ordinary run of trees, subject to the unjust anger of Jupiter. Many bay trees of some size have been seen to fall victims to the electric fluid.

The fig tree, the mulberry tree, and the peach tree have also been reputed to enjoy safety, but this also is not the case. There is an instance on record of a fig tree being struck by lightning and completely withered, and another of a mulberry-tree, eighty years old, being partly destroyed.

In our own days, the beech is believed to go uninjured. In the State of Tennessee, in the United States, the opinion is so deeply rooted that beech tree plantations are often resorted to as a refuge in times of storm. But it would be a mistake to place too much trust in them.

There are records of beech trees being struck by lightning and destroyed, just like bay trees, fig trees, and the rest.

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