PROTECTION FROM LIGHTNING. ■ 41" 



Academy a case of globular lightning, which the Academy had 

 charged me a few years ago, (June, 1843,) with the care of in- 

 vestigating and authenticating, and in which the ball of lightning 

 had struck a house (Rue St. Jacques in the neighborhood of the 

 Val de Grace,) as it withdrew. The following is a brief summary 

 of the account given by a workman into whose room the globular 

 thunderbolt descended and then remounted : 



After a rather loud thunderclap, but not immediately after it, 

 the workman, a sailor by trade, being seated by his table finishing 

 his meal, suddenly saw the chimney-board fall down, as if over-, 

 set by a slight gust of wind, and a globe of fire the size of a 

 child's head come out quietly from the chimney and move slowly 

 about the room at a small height above the tiles of the floor. The- 

 sailor said it looked like a good sized kitten rolled up in a ball 

 and moving without showing its paws. It was bright and shining, 

 rather than hot and burning ; the man said lie felt no sensation of 

 heat. The globe came near his feet like a young cat that wants 

 to play and rub itself against its master's legs ; but by moving 

 his feet aside and making various precautionary manoeuvres, — all 

 done by his own account very gently, — he avoided the contact. 

 It appears to have played several seconds about the feet of the 

 workman, who remained seated, his body bent over it and 

 examining it attentively. After having tried some excursions in 

 different directions, but without leaving the middle of the room, 

 it rose vertically to the height of the man's head ; to avoid its 

 touching his face he raised his body and threw himself back in his 

 chair, still keeping the meteor in view. When it had risen three 

 or four feet above the tiled floor, the globe became a little elon- 

 gated, and rising obliquely directed itself towards a hole pierced 

 in the chimney three and a half feet above the mantleshelf. The 

 hole had been made to allow a stove pipe, which the work- 

 man used in winter, to pass through, but according to his own 

 expression, ' the thunder could not see the hole, for it was covered 

 with paper which had been pasted over it. ; The globe of fire 

 however went straight to the aperture, unpasted the paper with- 

 out hurting it, and made its way into the chimney ; then when it 

 had just had time at the pace it was going, that is to say, pretty 

 slowly to get to the top of the chimney (at least 20 metres, or 66 

 feet from the ground of the court yard) it made a dreadful ex- 

 plosion, which destroyed the upper part of the chimney, and threw 

 the fragments into the yard on the roofs of smaller buildings which 



