126 Means of Protection against Lightning. 



may be covered, the emperors of Japan, if Koempfer may be 

 credited, cause a reservoir of water to be established above the 

 grotto in which they are wont to -take refuge during thunder- 

 storms ; the water being destined to extinguish lightning. In 

 certain circumstances, which we must ere long point out, a sheet 

 of water does become a preservative, almost certain, for what- 

 ever is placed beneath it ; but from this fact, it is not to be in- 

 ferred, that fish may not be destroyed by lightning throughout 

 the wide extent of their liquid habitation. Weichard Valvasor 

 informs us, in the 16th volume of the Philosophical Transac- 

 tions, that lightning, in the year 1670, having fallen on the 

 lake of Zirknitz, such a quantity of fish almost immediately 

 floated upon the surface, that the neighbouring inhabitants col- 

 lected twenty-eight waggon-load for manure. Again, on the 

 24th of September 1 772, lightning descended at Besanfon, in 

 the Doubs, and immediately the surface of the water was co- 

 vered with stunned fish, which were floated along by the cur- 

 rent of the stream. 



In days now gone by, it was generally thought, that indivi- 

 duals who ensconced themselves in their beds, had nothing to fear 

 Jrom lightning. This opinion, however extraordinary, seems 

 still to have partisans. Thus, for example, I find that Mr Howard 

 has taken particular care to register the two following facts : 

 On the 3d of July 1828, a cottage at Birdham, near Chichester, 

 was struck by lightning. With a crash, it destroyed the wooden 

 part of a bed, threw the bed-clothes on the ground, the mattress 

 likewise, and the individual who reposed upon it, without inflict' 

 ing upon him the slightest injury. Again, on the 9th of the 

 same month, at Great-Hough ton, near Doncaster, lightning re- 

 moved the coverlit of a bed on which a Mrs Brook was lying, 

 and she was no further annoyed than by her fears. But, to such 

 facts as these, it is no difficult matter to oppose others which 

 are not less authentic. In the 63d volume of the Philosophical 

 Transactions, there is a memoir, in which a clergyman, Mr 

 Samuel Kirkshaw, gives an account of the particulars of a 

 flash of lightning surprising Mr Thomas Hearthlcy, while 

 asleep in his bed, at Harrowgate, on the 29th of September 

 1772, and killing him on the spot. Mrs Hearthley, sleeping 

 by her husband, was not even awakened by it. She complained 



