Thunder-storms. 289 



the neighbouring churches, where they did not ring, were spared. 

 This observation has been reported in much too laconic a style ; 

 for it often happens that thunder-storms have a long and nar* 

 row course over a district, and it might have been so in Brit- 

 tany. Again, with regard to the churches which were saved, 

 were they not out of the direction pursued by the stormy 

 clouds ? In those belfries where they were ringing, the deaths 

 and severe wounds which occurred among the ringers, clearly 

 demonstrated the fall of the meteor; in other places, all the 

 damage, consisting merely of slight fissures in the wall, or the 

 fall of a little plaster, might be passed by without being noticed. 

 Finally, we ought, above all, to have been informed what were 

 the comparative heights of those steeples which were struck, and 

 of those that were unscathed. With all these uncertainties, the 

 observation of M. Ueslandes does not possess, it must be con- 

 ceded, the character of a true demonstration ; and science can 

 designate only as a simple probability, the conclusion which has 

 been drawn.* 



An argument against the ringing of the bells during a thun- 

 der-storm was much insisted upon in the month of August 1769, 

 from the circumstance that lightning fell upon the steeple of 

 Passy during the very time they were continuing to ring; but, 

 all things considered, it will be found that, throughout the long 

 continuance of the storm, they rang with no less assiduity at 

 Auteuil and at Chaillot, and, notwithstanding, the steeples of 

 these two communes, between which the struck belfry of Passy 

 stood, received no injury.t 



* Tlie numerous and severe disasters of the 15tli of April 1718, did not 

 at all injure the reputation of the bells in the estimation of the people in 

 Lower Brittany. The 15th of April 1718 was Good-Friday, a day on which 

 no bells should soimd. Hence they contended there was no ground of as- 

 tonishment, if those tvho, against a precept of their church, rang them, 

 should be punished fo r their crime. 



t In the year 1781, Khh6 Needham of Brussels conceived that he had 

 proved, by a cabinet (jxperiraent, that the ringing of bells is wholly inope- 

 rative, and does neither good nor harm. The detailed discussion of this 

 experiment will naturally occur at a future time, when I shall examine all 

 the analogies of lighti ling and of electricity. On the present occasion, I shall 

 only add a few words by anticipation, that the reader may at least perceive 

 the problem in all its aspects. 



