Danger from Lightning. 115 



department of the Seine, of individuals who had been so de- 

 stroyed ; thus there was the workman of whom we have recently 

 spoken at page 112, in connection with ascending lightning; 

 there was also an husbandman killed in the fields in the com- 

 mune of Champigny, on the 26th June 1807 ; and likewise a 

 mower killed at Romainville, on the 3d of August 1811, when 

 he was running for shelter with a pitchfork in his hand. Hence 

 it must have happened that the deaths from lightning were 

 designated and registered as deaths from accidents ; hence, too, 

 we should probably be much mistaken were we to receive as 

 accurate, and true to the letter, the number of deaths which 

 Lichtenberg reports for Gottingen and Halle. Nor would the 

 risk of error be less were we to generalize these results, by ap- 

 plying to all countries over the globe what had been observed 

 in one only, and in wishing to deduce from the experience of a 

 village what ought to be dreaded in a great city. Gottingen, 

 Halle, and Paris, it is said, scarcely reckon a single accident in 

 a century 1 True ; but let us notice what a little more accu- 

 rate investigation declares ; and, for this end, I open very much 

 at hazard, a few volumes in which I read such particulars as 

 the followino^ : — 



On the night between the 26th and 27th of July 1759, a flash 

 of lightning struck the theatre of the town of Feltre. It 

 KILLED A GREAT NUMBER of tkose present, and more or less 

 wounded all the others * On the 18th of February 1770, a 

 single thunderbolt threw to the ground, without their know- 

 ledge, ALL the inhabitants of Keverne in Cornwall, who were 

 assembled in their parish church during their Sunday service. 

 In the year 1808, the lightning fell twice in rapid succession 

 upon the inn of the town of Capelle, in Breisgau, and hilled 

 four persons and wounded a great many more. On the 20th of 

 March 1784, the lightning struck the theatre at Mantua ; of 

 400 people who were present it killed two and zvounded ten.\ 

 On the 11th of July 1819, the lightning fell during the service, 



* Lightning often occasions extensive fires ; on this occasion it was the 

 reverse, for it put out all the lights. 



t On this occasion, the lightning also melted ear-rings and watch-keys ; 

 it likewise cleaved diamonds, and this without wounding in the slightett de- 

 gree those who wore these several articles. 



