164 Mr. W. R. Birt oji the Production of Lightnmg by Rain. 



which a pane of glass was shattered. A woman who was near 

 this room at the time described the passage as being filled 

 with a light of a blue colour, and saw the lightning pass out of 

 the back window over her child's head. It would appear that 

 at the time the lightning was passing from one metallic con- 

 ductor to another in the immediate front of the houses, a 

 young man named Thomas Johnson opened the street-door 

 of No. 17: he was accompanied by a lad of about fourteen 

 years of age, who was, almost immediately after the door was 

 opened, thrown backwards. The shock was so sudden that 

 he knew not what happened to Johnson, who was found 

 shortly after lying on his side, his back to the wall, and feet 

 just beyond the threshold of the door, quite dead. He was 

 evidently struck by the lightning, which, playing in the front 

 of the houses, was probably attracted by the metallic spout 

 that terminated a few feet above the door. The plaster just 

 above the door, and which was most probably over his head, 

 was torn away; but there is no mark or perforation to trace 

 its entrance from above ; the probability appears to be, that a 

 stream struck upwards immediately after striking him. The 

 two houses immediately opposite to Nos. 21 and 22 also re- 

 ceived some injury from the lightning glancing sideways, as it 

 were, from the principal stream which sliattered the roof of 

 No. 22. 



It cannot fail to be remarked, that the principal mischief 

 after No. 22 was struck occurred in the front, and more or 

 less in the neighbourhood of the metallic spouts, which 

 answered the purpose of imperfect conductors, the metallic 

 continuity being interrupted on the roofs by the leaden gutters 

 extending only a certain distance on each side of the metallic 

 spouts, and also in front of the houses by the wooden spouts 

 carrying the water to the earth. In connexion with the pre- 

 sence of the lightning in the front, the altitude of the houses 

 struck renders it rather improbable that the stroke descended 

 immediately from the cloud. The houses in West Street are 

 the lowest in the neighbourhood; those in the street immedi- 

 ately to the north are rather higher; and at the further end of 

 the street, near No. 1, are three houses in North Street consi- 

 derably higher; so that had the stroke descended immediately 

 from the cloud above, which it is to be presumed was at the 

 usual elevation of clouds under these circumstances, the pro- 

 bability is that the high houses in North Street would have 

 been struck rather than the low houses at the further end of 

 West Street. Should it have been the case that the stroke 

 emanated from an altitude but little above the houses struck, 

 we nave evidently to seek the cause of the discharge below the 



