460 Miscellaneous Intelligence 



to' 



the smoke of a fresh-kindled cottage fire ascending from the 

 bosom of the wood ; and it is not until, by a closer attention, he 

 observes the inconstancy and mutability of this aerial phantom, 

 that he can be undeceived." 



The *' coe-fire" is observed when the atmosphere is unagi- 

 tated by the least breath of wind, and is attributed by Mr. Bain- 

 bridge to the electricity of the clouds which hang over the place 

 where the phenomenon exists. The electricity acting more at 

 one point than another, is supposed to cause the condensation 

 of aqueous vapour, and so to alter the specific gravity of the 

 atmosphere at that spot. This would give rise to current in the 

 air, and the shifting motion of the influence under which they are 

 produced, would account for the variation in size, number, and 

 place, that they are liable to. — Monthly Magazine^ 1820, p. 

 206. 



18. Discharge of Lightning through a bad Conductor.— On May 

 13, the lightning fell at 9 o'clock in the evening, on a house 

 at Berne, in Switzerland, furnished with a conductor too small 

 to convey away the whole of the electricity. In consequence 

 of the illustration which this circumstance offered, of the utility 

 of good conductors and danger of bad ones, M. Tretchsel 

 was appointed to examine into the phaenomena which had taken 

 place. 



The house stood alone on a plain elevated above the river 

 Aar. It was thirty feet long, and covered by tiles. Three families 

 lived in the eastern part of it. The western part was stables, 

 &c. ; the lightning conductor was fixed to a rod of wood, at- 

 tached to the roof of the house near to two chimneys. On leaving 

 the rod it descended without being in contact with the roof on 

 the south side of the house, and entered the earth near the 

 trunk of a tree. 



When the lightning descended, the light 'was intense ; and 

 a woman, with her child and a domestic, who were in the 

 house, were thrown to the earth senseless. A woman in the 

 kitchen said she saw the fire descend by the chimney and roll 

 towards the door ; and a man standing at the window saw the 



