The Last Thunder

It would be an interesting thing to make a careful study once a year, towards the end of the summer, of the habits and customs of thunder and lightning. Perhaps in this way we should succeed one day in determining the still mysterious nature of these elusive forces. I, for my part, have been engaged upon the task for many years past. It has produced a big accumulation of records, and in this volume I can find room but for a résumé of them, as varied as possible. In my first chapter I shall present a few characteristic examples, just to give my readers some hint of this variety.

Not to go too far back, let us begin with a harmless-I might almost say playful-fireball performance, of which M. Schnaufer, Professor at Marseilles, has given me the particulars.

In October, 1898, the fireball in question made its appearance in a room and advanced towards a young girl who was seated at the table, her feet hanging down without touching the floor. The luminous globe moved along the floor in the girl's direction, began to rise quite near her and then round and round her, spiral fashion, darted off towards a hole in the chimney-a hole made for the stove-pipe, and closed up with glued paper-made its way up the chimney, and, on emerging into the open air, gave out upon the roof an appalling crash which shook the entire house. It was a case of coming in like a lamb and going out like a lion!

A similar occurrence is recorded as having been observed in Paris, on July 5, 1852, in a tailor's room, including the same curious detail of the departure through the hole in the chimney, closed up with paper.

It was in the Rue Saint Jacques, near the Val de Grace. The fireball burst into the room from the chimney, knocking over the paper guard in front of the fireplace. In appearance it suggested a young cat, gathered up into a ball, as it were, and moving along without using its paws. It approached the tailor's legs as though to play with them. The tailor moved them away to avoid the contact, of which he naturally was in terror. After some seconds, the globe of fire rose vertically to the height of the man's face as he sat, and he, to save himself, leaned quickly back and fell over. The fireball continued to rise, and made its way towards a hole which had been made at the top of the chimney for the insertion of a stove-pipe in the winter, but which, as the tailor put it afterwards, "the fireball couldn't see," because it was closed up with paper. The ball stripped off the paper neatly, entered the chimney quite quietly, and having risen to the summit, produced a tremendous explosion, which sent the chimney-top flying, and scattered it in bits all over the neighbouring courtyard and surrounding roofs.

There we have a unique occurrence, recorded for us by Babinet and Arago, and of which I have given here the exact particulars. In both these cases we have to note the attraction of the hole in the chimney and the explosion of the thunderbolt on getting to the top. But it is not easy to detect the law underlying these phenomena.

In one of the latest volumes of the Association Fran?aise a somewhat similar case is dealt with.

"A violent storm," says the writer, M. Wander, "had descended upon the commune of Beugnon (Deux-Sèvres). I happened to be passing through a farm, in which were two children of about twelve and thirteen. These children were taking refuge from the rain under the door of a stable, in which were twenty-five oxen. In front of them extended a courtyard, sloping downwards towards a large pond, twenty or thirty yards away, beside which grew a poplar-tree. Suddenly there appeared a globe of fire, of the size of an apple, near the top of the poplar. We saw it descend, branch by branch, and then down the trunk. It moved along the courtyard very slowly, seeming almost to pick its way between the pools of water, and came up to the door where stood the children. One of them was bold enough to touch it with his foot. Immediately a terrible crash shook the entire farm to its foundations, the two children were thrown to the ground uninjured, but eleven of the animals in the stable were killed!"

Who is to explain these anomalies? The child who touched the fireball escapes with a fright, and a few feet behind him eleven animals out of twenty-five perish on the spot!

During the storm which broke out at the town of Gray, on July 7, 1886, my friend M. Vannesson, President of the Tribunal, saw a fireball of from thirty to forty centimetres in diameter, which exploded on the corner of a roof, cutting clean off the end portion of the central beam to the length of about half a yard (like a bundle of matches, but without setting it on fire), scattering the splinters over the upper story and loosening the plaster upon the walls below. It then rebounded on the roofing of a little outside staircase, made a hole in it, smashing and sending flying the slates, came down upon the road, and rolling right in the midst of some passers-by-who, like the child in the farm, escaped with a fright-disappeared.

My learned fellow-member of the Astronomical Society of France, Dr. Bougon, has discovered an account of one of the most remarkable fireballs ever recorded in La Gloire des Confesseurs, a work written by Gregory of Tours, the twentieth bishop of that town.

On the dedication day of an oratory which he had constructed in one of the outer buildings of the episcopal palace, all the participants in the procession from the cathedral, while approaching the oratory with the sacred relics and singing the litanies, saw a globe of fire, so intensely brilliant that their eyes were dazzled, and they could scarcely keep them open. Seized with terror, priests, deacons, sub-deacons, choristers, together with the distinguished citizens of the town, who were carrying the relics upon their shoulders, all with one accord threw themselves on the ground, face downward. Then Gregory, remembering that on the occasion of the death of St. Martin, some of whose bones were among the relics being carried from the cathedral, a globe of fire was said to have been observed to leave the saint's head and ascend heavenwards, believed himself to be in the presence of a miracle, vouchsafed as evidence at once of St. Martin's sanctity and the genuineness of his relics. This globe of fire did no damage and burnt nothing. Discurrebat autem per totam cellulam, tanquam fulgur, globus igneus.

There is to be seen at the Louvre a picture by Eustache Lesueur, entitled "La Messe de Saint Martin," which seemed to me at first to illustrate this narrative, but the spectators are shown in silent wonder instead of being prostrated as in the story. Moreover, Gregory of Tours tells us in his life of St. Martin, that one day during Mass a globe of fire was seen to appear above the head of the bishop, and then to rise heavenwards, to the great edification of the devout. It was this "miracle," evidently, that Lesueur intended to represent.

Here is another case of a remarkably harmless fireball which is often cited.

The Abbé Spallanzani it is who tells the story. On August 29, 1791, a young peasant woman was in a field during a storm, when suddenly there appeared at her feet a globe of fire of about the size of a billiard ball. Slipping along the ground, this little fireball reached her feet, caressed them, as it were, made its way up under her clothes, and issued again from the middle of her bodice, and, still keeping its globular form, darted off into the air and exploded noisily. When it got under her petticoats, they blew out like an umbrella, and she fell back. Two witnesses of the scene ran to her assistance, but she was unhurt. A medical examination revealed only a slight erosion of the skin, extending from the right knee to the middle of her breast; her chemise had been torn in two along the same line, and there was a hole through her bodice where the thunderbolt had got out.

In the "Memoirs of Du Bellay" the following very curious narrative is to be found. In all probability it is a fireball that is in question:-

"On March 3, 1557, Diane of France, illegitimate daughter of Henri II., then the Dauphin, married Fran?ois de Montmorency. On the night of their wedding, an oscillating flame came into their bedroom through the window, went from corner to corner, and finally to the nuptial bed, where it burnt Diane's hair and night attire. It did them no other harm, but their terror can be imagined."

Perhaps it may be as well to take with a pinch of salt the statement that the lady's attire was burnt in this way without harm to her person, yet there are other authentic stories of a similar kind almost as curious.

In 1897, at Linguy (Eure-et-Loire), a man and his wife were sleeping quietly, when suddenly a terrible crash made them jump out of bed. They thought their last hour had come. The chimney, broken to pieces, had fallen in and its wreckage filled the room, the gable-end was put out and the roof threatened to come down. The effects of the thunderbolt in the room itself were less alarming than its effects outside, but were very curious. For instance, bricks from one wall had been dashed horizontally against the wall opposite, with such extraordinary force that they were to be seen imbedded in it up above a dresser upon which pots and pans, etc., were ranged, and within a few inches of the ceiling, while the windows of the room had been smashed into bits, and a looking-glass, detached from the wall, stood on end whole and entire upon the floor, delicately balanced. A chair near the bed, upon which articles of clothing had been placed, had been spirited away to a spot near the door. A small lamp and a box of matches were to be found undamaged upon the floor. An old gun, suspended from a beam, was violently shaken and had lost its ramrod.

The thunderbolt actually frolicked over the bed, leaving its occupants more dead than alive from terror but quite unhurt. It passed within a few inches of their heads and passed through a fissure in a partition into an adjoining dairy, where it carried a whole row of milk-cans, full of milk, from one side of the room to another, breaking the lids but not upsetting a single can. It broke four plates out of a pile of a dozen, leaving the remaining eight intact. It carried away the tap from a small barrel of wine, which emptied itself in consequence.

It ended by passing out through the window without further breakage, leaving the husband and wife unscathed but panic-stricken.

One of the strangest tricks to which lightning is addicted is that of undressing its victims. It displays much more skill and cleverness in such diversions than is to be found in animals or even in many human beings.

Here is one of the most curious instances of this on record, as narrated by Morand:-

"A woman in man's costume. A storm suddenly comes on. A flash of lightning strikes her, carries off and destroys her clothes and boots. She is left stark naked, and she has to be wrapped up in a cloth and taken thus to the neighbouring village."

In 1898, at Courcelles-les-Sens, Mlles. Philomène Escalbert, aged 19, Adèle Delauffre, aged 22, and Madame Léonie Legère, aged 44, were standing round a reaping-machine, when a flash of lightning struck Madame Legère and killed her on the spot. The two young girls were stripped to the skin, even their boots being torn from their feet. Otherwise they were left safe and sound-and astonished.

On October 1, 1868, seven persons took refuge during a storm under a huge ash-tree near the village of Bonello, in the Commune of Perret (C?tes-du-Nord), when suddenly the tree was struck by lightning, and one of them-a woman-was killed. The six others were knocked to the ground without being seriously damaged. The clothes of the woman who had been killed were torn into shreds, many of which were found clinging to the branches of the tree.

On May 11, 1869, a farmer at Ardillats was tilling the ground with his two oxen, not far from his dwelling-place, about four in the afternoon. The air was close and heavy, and the sky covered with black clouds. Suddenly there was a great thunderclap, and a flash of lightning struck both man and beasts dead on the spot. The man was found stripped to the skin, and his boots had been carried thirty yards away.

In July, 1896, at Epervans (Sa?ne-et-Loire), a young man named Petiot, who was mowing in a meadow, was struck dead by lightning while lighting a cigarette, and left in a state of complete nakedness.