Rev. Mr Scoresby on the Effects of Lightning. 203 



of a process in which the extremities will not project beyond 

 the apparatus. 



It would doubtless be curious to demonstrate that sonorous 

 bodies of hard substances, like glass, bell-metal, &c. not only 

 change their form in vibrating, but very sensibly increase 

 or diminish their volume, nearly in the same manner as if they 

 were heated and cooled alternately, which would explain how 

 these motions may produce molecular sounds analogous to 

 those which liquid phosphorus emits when placed upon a bass, 

 and in the act of becoming solid ; and it might perhaps fur- 

 nish some new data for explaining why the sonorous effect of 

 solid bodies loses its intensity when the bodies are freed from 

 the pressure of the atmosphere. 



The same results might perhaps furnish also a new argu- 

 ment in favour of the theory by which our author explains 

 how the sound of vibrating bodies arises principally from the 

 shocks of the molecules propagated in the air like the noise of 

 a musical hammer, rather than from their atmospheric excur- 

 sions. 



Art. III.* — On the singular Effects of two Strokes of Light- 

 ning upon the vessel called the New York, while saili?ig 

 from London to New York. By the Reverend William 

 Scoresby. * 



During the passage of the ship called the New York from 

 London to New York, a voyage which she generally perform- 

 ed in twenty-five days, a stroke of lightning overturned all the 

 partitions without exception, but no person was hurt. The 

 vessel was deprived of its conductor. 



The next day the Captain, dreading another storm, had 

 placed a conductor upon the main-mast. The lightning 

 struck the rod of the conductor, and melted it entirely ; it al- 

 so melted the iron conductor, which fell in drops into the sea. 

 Almost all the passengers had observed the water of the sea 

 sink down in a distinct manner, in a certain space round the 



• This is an abstract of a paper read to the Academy of Sciences on the 

 14th January. 



