TEE FEAR OF LIGHTNING. 



367 



the discharges and the strangely destructive ef- 

 fects which these discharges sometimes occasion. 

 These are the causes of what may be described 

 as the general dread of lightning, that apprehen- 

 sion which every one feels in some degree during 

 the continuance of a thunder-storm. The degree, 

 as we have already remarked, is determined by 

 the nervous organization of the individual and 

 the strength of his imagination. But beyond this 

 vague feeling of impending danger which all share 

 in common, there is aroused in some persons by 

 the outbreak of a thunder-storm an inordinate 

 dread, an overpowering terror, that cannot be 

 accounted for wholly in this way. The source of 

 this exceptional fear of lightning is generally to 

 be traced to early impressions. The imagination 

 of the child has been violently and painfully ex- 

 cited. In the very tender years of life the imagi- 

 nation is extremely active, and the mind is partic- 

 ularly impressionable. The child that has been 

 thrown into a state of terror by a supposed ghost- 

 ly apparition will, especially if it be of a nervous 

 temperament, carry a dread of supernatural ap- 

 pearances into mature life ; and though the man 

 may, by the force of his reason and will, repress 

 the feeling, it will nevertheless arise whenever oc- 

 casion for it recurs. There are few who do not 

 suffer in this way from the indiscretion of nurse- 

 girls or elder playmates, the undue fear of light- 

 ning being among the commonest evils induced 

 by this means. 



The causes of an excessive dread of lightning 

 having been ascertained, the remedies are ob- 

 vious. That degree of apprehension, hardly 

 amounting to fear, which is occasioned by the 

 nature of the phenomenon, admits of no modi- 

 fication ; nor is it desirable that the moderate 

 and proper sense of awe called forth by what is 

 perhaps the grandest exhibition of natural forces, 

 should be suppressed. But the evil of a fear 

 arising from ignorance, and particularly of that 

 excessive fear which is a source of disquietude 

 and shame to those in whom it is found, calls for 

 protest. As better than cure, prevention alone 

 is to be looked to. Excessive dread is indeed 

 hardly to be described as less than a malady which 

 when once established admits of no cure. This 

 fact should lead parents to take every possible 

 care that no impressions of the character in ques- 

 tion be made in early childhood. When the dread, 

 however, arises from simple ignorance, all that is 

 needed is to remove the ignorance. It is with 

 this object in view that we offer a few plain re- 

 marks on the nature of lightning, and on the 

 laws which it obeys. 



When a cloud becomes charged with elec- 

 tricity, the earth also becomes charged in a like 

 degree with electricity of an opposite kind ; if the 

 cloud is charged " positively," as it is termed in 

 technical language, the earth is charged " nega- 

 tively." The air between the cloud and the earth 

 acts as the dielectric or non-conducting substance 

 which keeps the two kinds of electricity apart. 

 This arrangement of two charged conducting sur- 

 faces separated by a non-conducting substance 

 constitutes what is known as a " condenser," a 

 familiar example of which is found in the Leyden- 

 jar. When a condenser is charged, the electrici- 

 ties upon the opposite surfaces have a tendency 

 to get together, and the tendency becomes stron- 

 ger as the " charge " or quantity of electricity 

 increases. The force which impels the two elec- 

 tricities together is known to men of science as 

 "electro-motive force," and the state which it sets 

 up is called " tension." It is easy to see that if 

 the tension goes on increasing by an accumula- 

 tion of electricity on the separated surfaces, there 

 must come a time when it will equal and exceed 

 the resistance offered by the intervening stratum 

 of air. When this time comes, the electricities 

 pass through the air to each other, from the cloud 

 to the earth, and from the earth to the cloud. But 

 as the resistance to be overcome is very great — 

 air offering greater resistance to objects traversing 

 it than most people would suppose — much heat 

 is generated, and this heat shows itself in the flash 

 which we call lightning. Thus the lightning-flash 

 is the visible manifestation of the heat generated 

 by the passage of the electricities through the air. 

 It is a well-known scientific fact that electricity 

 always chooses the path that offers to it the least 

 resistance ; and as, in the case of lightning, this 

 point or path is continually changing, in conse- 

 quence of the motion of the cloud and other vary- 

 ing circumstances, the successive discharges occur 

 in different places. 



It will now be readily perceived why tall build- 

 ings, such as church-spires, are more liable to 

 be " struck," to use the common expression, than 

 structures of a less height. Buildings may be con- 

 structed, wholly or in part, of substances possessing 

 greater conducting power than the air, and as they 

 rise to considerable distances above the earth's 

 surface, they lessen by so much the thickness of 

 the stratum of air to be traversed, and diminish 

 in a corresponding degree the resistance to be over, 

 come between cloud and earth. Of two edifices 

 equally conductive, the higher will thus occasion 

 the greater reduction of resistance, and conse- 

 quently the discharge will take place directly over 



