Part 25 (1/2)

Presently we shall come to the others awaiting their turn, then to the spectators, and finally to the markers at the targets.

The men were firing, either kneeling or lying.

A remained in position, kneeling ”like a statue,” unable to move. He turned right over as soon as he was touched. Killed.

B had _a pine tree depicted on his breast_--upside down, its roots indicated by some outlines up at the top; the picture was of a brownish rather than a blueish shade. It was suggested that it resembled a pine, because of a pine being ten metres away from the stand, but really it was more like a branch of fern. Killed.

C felt hardly anything apart from a certain heaviness in his limbs when picking himself up.

D had some slight burns, which were healed within two or three days.

E was holding his rifle with the barrel vertically. He found himself about 2-1/2 metres from his position on the ground, with a stone in his hands; his rifle had been bent in two below the trigger.

A's scorer held the pear-shaped handle of the electric bell between his fingers, his elbows upon the table. Saw nothing, heard nothing.

Felt himself suddenly bent up double, his face buried in the gravel; lost consciousness while he was being carried away; when he came to himself again he began to ramble in his speech; his pencil was broken lengthwise into four pieces. The wire of his bell had been electrified. By way of wound, he had a picture of a pine branch on his back; water issued from it as from a blister; there were no traces of blood. The picture disappeared at the end of two days. For a certain time the young man had a pain in his loins; he still limps somewhat; probably what he now suffers from is sciatic lumbago, the result of partial and temporary paralysis.

B's scorer had only some insignificant burns.

C's scorer only came to himself twenty minutes later as the result of artificial respiration. At the moment of the lightning he was pressing the electric b.u.t.ton with his thumb in order to give the signal, ”Change the target;” he had a small hole in his thumb. This burn bled later, and the wound took four weeks to heal. He had also some burns on his legs.

D's scorer was holding the handle of the bell against his left cheek, on a level with his eye. The handle, made of wood, burst. The sight of his left eye is still affected, being very weak--the retina was probably torn away. The day after the accident, the young man's face became all inflamed, especially the part round the eyes. These were quite hidden. This inflammation, of a bluish tint, is due to the dilation of the small veins or of the capillaries.

Dr. Yersin, who attended several of the victims, attributes this dilation to a paralysis of the vasomotor nerves, ”_which would also explain the tree-like form of the pictures seen upon the skin_,” and the transudation (?) of water across the small blood-vessels.

E's scorer had time to see the men on his left fall, in a green or violet light. He had heard a general death-rattle-like chorus, ”Aooo”--then, before he could make out what was happening, he found himself driven up against the wall of the stand. He had a wound under his feet; his thumb torn also, probably in trying to hold himself up against the wall.

Behind the scorers were a dozen other riflemen and some spectators. To the left the electric current left intact the rifles standing on the rack. Quite near this, a man awaiting his turn fell, clinging on to the neck of one of his comrades, also struck. Later he found his purse in the middle of the stand.

In the case of several of the spectators, the burns were to be found in separate sores. One had his hair burnt on one spot of about the size of a five franc piece; others, who had burns upon their feet and legs, are under the impression they saw a small blue flame at the tips of their shoes.

The general feeling was at first merely that of stupefaction. Terror did not come until afterwards. ”Those who did not lose all consciousness were half stunned.” A young boy was noticed jammed up against the wall, incapable of moving, but bewailing his inability to get to his father, who lay dead upon the ground. Two men took flight without throwing aside their guns; another ran as far as the village, and some hours afterwards he was found asleep in a house ”to which there was nothing to take him.” One young spectator, a stranger to the neighbourhood, was seized with a partial paralysis of the brain; he could not keep his balance when walking, and when questioned he would recite the names of stations on a Swiss railway. He is better now.

This event will not be soon forgotten in the Joux valley. But Dr.

Yersin's explanation of the Ceraunic pictures does not seem to me to be justified.

Here is a fourth instance, given me long ago by one of the most learned physicists of last century, Hoin, of the Inst.i.tute.

”I am going to tell you,” he wrote to me in July, 1866, ”of a stroke of lightning which was very curious in its effects. It occurred at midday on June 27, at Bergheim, a village situated to the north of Logelbach at the foot of the Vosges. It struck two travellers who had taken refuge under the tree and knocked them over senseless--one of them was lifted to a height of more than a yard and thrown upon his back. It was thought they must be dead, but thanks to the attention given to them at once, they were brought to themselves, and they are now out of danger. But here is the strange feature of the accident.

Both travellers have on their backs, extending down to their thighs, _the imprint, as though by photography, of the leaves of a lime tree_; according to the statement of the Mayor, M. Radat, _the most skilful draughtsman could not have done it better_.”

Here is a fifth instance which I find among my records. The incident happened at Chambery, May 29, 1868.

In the course of a violent storm, a soldier of the 47th Regiment was struck by lightning underneath a chestnut tree. In a memorandum drawn up on June 18 by a learned doctor of Chambery, an eyewitness of the occurrence, the following facts are recorded:--

”The man who was killed had been standing in the centre of a group of eight soldiers, who had their guns in their hands, without bayonets.

Struck in the region of the heart, he did not succ.u.mb for about a quarter of an hour, after saying a few words. The corpse bore an oval plate, so to speak, of about 13 to 14 centimetres in length, by 4 to 5 in width, occupying largely the precordial region, and presenting the parchment-like aspect of a vesicatory that had become rapidly dried up. The clothes were neither torn nor burnt.

”Two hours after his death an examination of the body resulted in the discovery of a phenomenon already recorded by several observers--the reproduction of photo-electric pictures.

”On the right shoulder were three bunches of leaves of a more or less deep reddish violet hue, reproduced minutely with the most absolute photographic precision. The first, situated on the lower part of the inside of the forearm, represented a long branch of leaves like those of a chestnut tree; the second, which seemed to be formed by two or three such branches twisted together, was in the middle of the outside of the arm; and the third, in the middle of the shoulder, larger and rounder, showed only some leaves and small branches at the top and at the borders, the centre presenting a red stain diminis.h.i.+ng towards the circ.u.mference. The body, when dissected, bore no sign of any interior lesion.”