Thunder and Lightning Part 24

Portable conductors have been invented from time to time--silk umbrellas without iron ribs, and clothes of indiarubber and such-like; but they have all been childish things.

Without allowing one's self to get lightning, so to speak, on the brain, it is well to take certain precautions during a storm.

The first and princ.i.p.al one is not to get under a tree.

The second is to give a wide berth to telegraph posts, so as to avoid contact with the sparks that may issue from them.

Movements of the air having the effect of preparing an excellent route for the fluid, it is well not to run in a storm. It is well also not to ring a bell.

It is well, also, to avoid being in the neighbourhood of animals, in view of their attraction for lightning.

In houses, doors and windows should be closed in order to avoid draughts. It is well to keep away from the chimney, too, as well as from metallic objects.

But lightning always has its caprices. It is this that makes its study so interesting.

CHAPTER X

PICTURES MADE BY LIGHTNING

In this last chapter I would like to group together a series of instances of pictures made by lightning, some of them very curious and attributed, it would seem, to flashes of a special character, which we may perhaps term Ceraunic Rays, from _Keraunos_, lightning. These instances are of great variety, and doubtless admit of many different explanations. Here, then, is a selection worth looking into.

In this case, as in so many others, it is extremely difficult to get at the exact truth.

Generally speaking, it is from the newspapers that we get the facts--more or less accurately observed, more or less accurately recorded. I have made great efforts to inform myself personally as to the incidents whenever this has been practicable.

The _Pet.i.t Ma.r.s.eillais_ of June 18, 1896, published the following:--

"A correspondent writes to us from Pertius, June 17:--

"'In the course of the storm here yesterday, two day-labourers of our town, Jean Sasier and Joseph Elisson, took refuge in a cabin constructed of reeds. They were standing at the entrance when they were struck by lightning and thrown violently to the ground. Elisson, who was not much hurt, soon recovered his senses and called for help.

People ran up at once and carried the two men to where they live, where all necessary attention was given to them.

"'Sasier's condition, though serious enough by reason of a burn on his right side, is not causing anxiety. The curious part of the incident is the effect the electric fluid has produced upon Elisson. The lightning cut open one of his boots and tore his trousers; but over and above this, like a tattooer making use of photography, _it reproduced admirably_ on the artisan's body a representation of a pine tree, of a poplar, and of the handle of his watch. It is an undoubted case of photography through opaque materials; most luckily the sensitive plate--Elisson's body--merely took the impression and received no injury.'"

On reading this narrative, I wrote to the Mayor of the Commune of Pertius to ask him for confirmation of it, and for a photograph, if possible, of the picture on Elisson's body. By a fortunate circ.u.mstance, the Mayor happened to be the doctor who had attended the victim. Here is his reply:--

"M. Joseph Elisson, of Pertius, aged about thirty-eight, was struck by lightning on June 17. Called to attend to him at about two in the afternoon, I found some superficial burns forming a trail, which began near the teat of his left breast, at the level of his waistcoat pocket, in which there was a watch (which had not stopped), and went down towards the navel, then turned boldly to the right towards the iliac spine and down the outer side of his right leg as far as the ankle, at the level of which his boot, made of strong leather, had been split open.

"To the right, a little outside the vertical line pa.s.sing the teat, there was imprinted in vivid red--the red of the burn--a picture of a tree. The foot of it was on a level with the edge of the ribs, the top went slightly above the teat.

This picture was absolutely vertical. Its outlines stood out very distinctly from the white skin. It was composed of bold, clearly defined lines, about a demimillimetre in width.

Neither waistcoat nor shirt were burnt or marked in any way to correspond with it. Other representations of tree branches were reproduced higher up on the breast, but not so distinctly in the midst of a uniform redness. Not having by me my camera, I made a sketch of the tree, which was marvellously distinct, leaving the taking of a photograph until next day. Next day, when I returned with my camera, the picture was still clearly visible, but it had faded a good deal, lost in the colour of the skin, and no longer to be reproduced by photography. I regretted bitterly not having taken it the day before. I regret this all the more now that you have done me the honour of writing to me on the subject, and I am glad to be able to send you my sketch of the picture, which is correct as to dimensions, and which represents what I saw as accurately as I could make it.

"DR. G. TOURNATOIRE."

Here is a facsimile of the sketch enclosed by the doctor.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

It is somewhat like the shape of a poplar. There is nothing to suggest that we have here a case of swollen veins, or arteries made conspicuous by a flow of blood, nor of a tree-like form due to blood vessels, in which the blood has taken on a more or less marked aspect.

On the other hand, it is certainly not much easier to recognize in it a photograph of a more or less distant tree. In this state of uncertainty on the subject, I wrote again to Dr. Tournatoire, and begged of him to go to the scene of the incident and to make a plan of the ground, and take a photograph of the view. Here is the doctor's reply:--

"This plan can be reproduced by a few typographical lines in such a way as to show clearly how things happened--

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"The square represents the cabin in which the two workmen took refuge.

They were sitting almost opposite each other on the seats marked A and B. There is a flash of lightning. One of the men is knocked over, and bears on his right side a picture of the poplar P, which stands one hundred metres away, and is visible by A through the door O, of which the width is one metre. Behind this poplar stands a big pine, a branch of which is also depicted on the man's body. By this same stroke of lightning the other worker, seated at B, is thrown out of the cabin three metres by an opening D, about forty centimetres wide. The two men are alive, and have come out of it with a few days' rest. They saw nothing, heard nothing, and can remember nothing."

In the photographs taken by Dr. Tournatoire it is not clear which is the tree, for the poplar, P, does not stand out alone. As the cabin stands under the shade of a pine tree, one is disposed to ask whether the lightning did not strike this pine? But judging by the position of the trees relatively to the man struck, the most likely hypothesis is that the electric discharge came from the point P towards A, and that the poplar as well as the adjacent pine formed a sort of screen, and reproduced their reflection by the agency of some unknown const.i.tuent of these Ceraunic Rays, which enable them to photograph things in this way through clothes on to the human body.

This a.s.suredly is a more extraordinary effect than those obtained by the cathodic rays or anti-cathodic rays, of which science seems equally unable to give any explanation.

Let us proceed with our studies. It is important above all never to take the newspaper narratives on trust without verification. In the month of June, 1897, the following appeared in the newspapers:--

"PHOTOGRAPHIC LIGHTNING.--A _cha.s.seur_ of the 15th battalion, in barracks at Remiremont, was struck by lightning. He was standing upon a mound not far from a grove of pines, in the midst of ferns. Curious to relate, on the occasion of recording the fact of the man's being dead, it was discovered that his body was covered with punctures imprinted on it by the lightning, and representing the nature and aspect of the branches and plants all round him at the time when he was struck."

I wrote at once to the _chef de bataillon_ for a precise confirmation of this, and received the following reply:--

"M. le Commandant Joppe, commanding officer of the 15th Battalion of Cha.s.seurs, has handed me your letter of June 14th, and asked me to reply to it.

"It is the case that a _cha.s.seur_ of the battalion was struck by lightning on the afternoon of June 4, but it is quite untrue that there was found on his body a photograph of the trees adjoining the spot of the accident. The man's clothes were not affected in any way, and the only traces left by the pa.s.sage of the lightning, consisted in some slight irregularly shaped burns on the upper part of the hollow of the right temple of linear formation, save for one circular burn measuring from three to four millimetres in diameter, and depressing the skin into the shape of a saucer. There was no lesion on the whole surface of the body.

"MAUNY, "Surgeon-Major 15th Battalion of Cha.s.seurs."

This reply was covered by a note which ran as follows:--

"I thought it desirable that the reply to your letter of the 14th inst. should be made by the surgeon-major of my battalion in order that it might be the more scientifically accurate and authoritative.

"JOPPe, "Chef de bataillon brevete, "Commanding Officer of the 15th Battalion of the Cha.s.seurs des Vosges."

Clearly, the student of natural phenomena cannot take too many precautions. And yet ... an officer of high rank confided to me recently that "surgeon-majors hardly ever take the trouble to examine bodies thoroughly," and that it is possible that in this case "the examination may have been very superficial." If this be a general rule, there must have been an exception here, as also in the fifth case, to which we shall be coming just now.

The problem is far from being solved, and we can but seek to study it as set forth in a number of instances. Here is a third case:--

On Sunday, August 23, 1903, a certain number of riflemen were practising at the Charbonnieres range, near the village of Le Pont, in the valley of Lalle Joux (Canton de Vaud, Suisse), five targets out of six were in use. The targets, distant 300 metres from the firing-line, are placed to the side of a grove of pines. Between stretches an undulating rock-strewn meadow-land. Only the b.u.t.ts are provided with a lightning-conductor, and in it are five markers. _There are six telephone wires along the line of fire_; they come as far as the stand and go down to within about 50 centimetres of the scorers' seats.

_Each target has its own telephone bell._

The weather was not stormy, though the sky was somewhat overcast.

Firing was going on. At about 3.30 there was a clap of thunder, and lightning struck the electric wires. In the stand twenty-eight men, riflemen, scorers, and spectators, are thrown to the ground in every direction and in every position. Some are quite inert, apparently dead; others, looking as though they were asphyxiated, give out a painful rattling noise from their throats. At the bar, to the side of the stand, no one felt anything--it was not even noticed that there had been a violent stroke of lightning. A kilometre away the band, which had been giving a concert in front of the Hotel de la Triute on the bridge, continued to play. Presently a man reaches them with the report that twenty of the riflemen have been killed. Consternation becomes general, and relief parties are organized. Fortunately the damage done was much less than was supposed.

Let us describe the men actually engaged in firing, and placed in a line, A, B, C, D, and E, their scorers are behind them.

Let us give our attention, first, to these men and their scorers.