20" 



THE GUIDE T< ) .NATURE 



church. i\'<'\\ ii is a confession thai the 

 church musl answer for a fault of 

 omission. 



Bui '1" naturalists pray? Why don'l 

 1 1 u\ . as j i iu suggest, have mi >re "pra) er 

 in nature meetings?" Because they can- 

 no1 have more. The} pra} all the time, 

 now; with every eflforl of body in per- 

 sistent work; with tensest strain of 

 mind in closesl thought. They pray, if 

 the) are worthy of the name of natural- 

 ist, For more truth, more love, more 

 insighl and closer relations to the great 

 Intiniu of Mis Works. They pray by 

 long tours, persistent searchings, dili- 

 genl use of collecting case, by every de- 

 vice for experimental aid or optical use. 

 I'hcx press forward, and long to see 

 face to lace and not as now — through i 

 glass darkly. They constantly practice 

 what in this letter you have preached so 

 well. 



I once wrote a little Fable. Here it 

 is. Tut it on a placard and hang it in 

 your chapel, and we will hang in our 

 room for "nature meetings'' anything 

 you may send. 



"And the Minister preached and be- 

 came eloquent about the Glories, Man- 

 ifestations and Inspirations in God's 

 Universe. . He told Parables and drew 

 Arguments from the Natural World. 

 He sang in smoothly flowing Stanzas of 

 the Magnitude of the Solar System and 

 of the Exquisite Perfection of the 

 Flower. And the Congregation heartily 

 said, 'Amen!' 



"And, Behold! A Listener went 

 forth to Test the Truth, to try to prac- 

 tice these Teachings. Then Humanity 

 passed along and said, 'He has a Bug 

 House: there are Wheels in his Head; 

 he delves in Things Uncanny.' And 

 even the Minister as he went by re- 

 marked, 'Why you Thought I actually 

 '"-ant what I Said!'"— B. F. B. 



Ball or Globe Lightning. 



New Rochelle, New York. 



I ' i the Editor : 



1 have been greatly interested dur- 

 ing the last summer in what is called 

 ball or globe lightning. One of my 

 neighbors Inning witnessed such a 

 phenomenon and described it to me in 

 a letter, 1 sent a copy of the letter to 

 the "English Mechanic," and asked an 

 explanation of it, but instead of an ex- 

 planation numerous letters were sent 

 to the editor describing similar appear- 

 ances, i then sent the same letter to 

 the "Scientific American," with the re- 

 sult that I have received many letters 

 from all parts of the United States 

 and Canada describing the most mar- 

 velous appearances of electric balls 

 that can be imagined. 



Thinking that these stories were 

 mostly imaginaryj wrote to the Chief 

 of the Weather Bureau at Washing- 

 ton and asked about them, and his 

 answer is that the descriptions I have 

 received are probably correct and that 

 there is abundant evidence of their 

 reality. 



These fireballs are seen during thun- 

 derstorms, and are evidently electri- 

 cal, but do not conform to the well- 

 known laws of electrical phenomena 

 for these balls move slowly compared 

 with electricity or lightning, and some- 

 times, but not always, explode with 

 great violence. 



Yours truly, 



J. D. Hyatt. 



"We love things not because they 

 are beautiful but they are beautiful be- 

 cause we love them." 



(extracts from letters from othek 

 observers.) 

 The phenomenon described is with- 

 out doubt a form of lightning discharge 

 to which the name "ball" lightning has 

 been applied in this country and 

 "Kugelblitz" in Germany. This form 

 of discharge is the most remarkable 

 and the most puzzling of the different 

 forms of lightning. It moves with only 

 moderate speed and its track can be 

 easily followed by the eye. Sometimes 

 it vanishes without noise and again 

 with deafening explosions. In earlier 

 days it was often explained as an op- 

 tical illusion but so many careful ob- 

 servers have described it that there 

 can be no longer any doubt of its re- 



