116 Danger from Lightning. 



upon the church qfChdteauneuf-les-Moutiers^ in the neighbour- 

 hood of Digne, Department of the Lower Alps, and killed nine 

 individuals on the spot, and more or less wounded eighty-two. 

 The same flash killed in the middle of a stable, close to the 

 building, five sheep and a mare. 



In spite of these citations, no one will doubt me when I affirm 

 that to each of the inhabitants of Paris, or any other city, the 

 danger of being struck with lightning is less than that of being 

 killed in the street by the fall of a workman from a roof, or of a 

 chimney-can, or flower-pot. There is no one, I believe, who, 

 in starting in the morning, dwells upon the idea that a work- 

 man, or chimney, or flower-pot, will fall on his head. If, then, 

 fear reasoned, we should not be more uneasy during a thunder- 

 storm which lasted for a whole day. For the acquittal of our 

 understandings, however, it ought to be added that the vivid and 

 sudden flashes which announce the lightning, and its resounding 

 thunders, produce involuntary nervous effects which the strongest 

 organizations cannot always resist. It ought also to be stated, 

 that if the descent of true thunderbolts is but rare, the total 

 number of strokes of lightning of one kind and another, 

 throughout the year is, on the contrar}^ very great ; that 

 nothing distinguishes the harmless flashes from the others ; and 

 that however insignificant in reality the danger may truly be, 

 it seems to be increased by the considerable number of its 

 apparent renewals. This consideration will appear clearer if, 

 returning to our term of comparison, I suppose that at the mo- 

 ment when a workman, or chimney, or flower-pot was about to 

 Jail from a roof or a window, a very loud detonation were to 

 announce the event throughout the whole extent of the city ; 

 every one might then conceive, many times a-day, that he was 

 precisely in the street where the accident was to happen, and 

 his alarm, without being at all better founded, would become 

 conceivable. 



I have been treating above of the accidents which occur in 

 the middle of g7'eat toivns. Were we to rely upon general be- 

 lief there is much greater danger in villages, and in the open 

 country. Theoretical considerations to which the review I am 

 now taking forbids me to advert, would tend to confirm this 

 opinion. As for facts again, I see not how it is possible to 



