Means of Protection against Lightning. 127 



of pain in her right arm, which, however, only lasted a few 

 hours. 



TJie sJcin of the seal was considered by the Romans as an 

 efficacious preservative against lightning. On this account tents 

 were manufactured of these skins, to which the timid resorted 

 during a thunder-storm. Suetonius mentions, that the Em- 

 peror Augustus, who was afraid of thunder, always carried one 

 of these skins with him. In the Cevennes (Depart, du Gard), 

 where Roman colonies for so long existed, the shepherds collected 

 the cast skins q/' serpents, with the greatest care ; as late even 

 as our own times, they surrounded the crowns of their hats 

 with them, and supposed that then they were safe from light- 

 ning (Laboissiere, Acad, du Gard). These serpents' skins, to 

 all appearance, formerly served the same purpose, in the esti- 

 mation of the people, as the rarer and more valuable seals' 

 skins had previously done. 



It is the more expedient thus to dwell upon the selection 

 which Augustus made of the skin of seals, as at present we do 

 not know how to justify it, either by fgcts or theory. As re- 

 spects, however, the idea, that the choice of clothing is not 

 wholly a matter of indifference under a thunder-storm, the in- 

 formation of the moderns concerning the fulminating matter, in 

 no degree contradicts it. On the other hand, numerous in- 

 stances may even be cited, in which it would seem, that some 

 individuals appear to have been preserved, and others struck, 

 according as they wore particular garments, manufactured of 

 particular stuffs. Thus, on the day of the catastrophe, at the 

 Chdteauneiif-les-Moutiers already alluded to, two of the three 

 priests who were officiating at the altar, were violently laid 

 prostrate, whilst the third sustained no injury; and he alone 

 was clothed in garments of silk.* 



* According to indirect experiments, on which we shall dwell at a future 

 time, all natural philosophers have agreed, that wax-cloths, and silk and 

 woollen-stuffs are less permeable to the material of lightning than linen, 

 hempen-cloths, or other vegetable substances. They are not quite so well 

 agreed as to whether, in time of a storm, wet clothing is preferable to dry. 

 Nollett dreads wet clothing, because water communicates to them the 

 faculty with which it is itself endowed ; it being one of those bodies for 

 which lightning has a preference. Franklin again, adopts the opposite 



