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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



CORRESPONDENCE 



CURIOUS EFFECT OF LIGHTNING. 



Messrs. Editors. 



rriHE following remarkable freak of light- 

 _L ning seems to me worthy of record : 

 There was a severe shower, accompanied by 

 vivid lightning and peals of thunder, in Sa- 

 lem, Massachusetts, August 6, 1879. A lady, 

 while passing through a room in range of two 

 open windows, was suddenly enveloped in a 

 blaze of light from her feet to her waist. 

 She was not in any way unpleasantly affect- 

 ed by it, but from a sense of fright threw 

 herself on the bed beside a friend ; both de- 

 tected the smell of sulphur and of burned 

 leather. Nothing more was thought of the 

 matter till two days after, when the lady 

 went to her dress, which had hung in a 

 closet ever since the afternoon of the storm, 

 to get her purse from the pocket. The 

 purse contained eighty-five dollars in green- 

 backs. What was her astonishment, when 

 it was opened, to find the money gone, and 

 in its place only charred fragments of the 

 same and ashes ! The remnants of the bills 

 were adherent to the sides of the central 

 pocket in which the money was contained. 

 Nothing was left of it sufficient to identify 

 it as bills. The pocket of the purse in 

 which it was held was surrounded by a rim 

 of nickel with a central clasp. The clasp 

 was bent and blackened. The band was 

 riveted on by two steel pins. A car-ticket 

 in an adjoining compartment of tlie purse 

 was blackened ; a silver half-dollar was 

 blackened and also bent. The purse was 

 not burned or marred externally, but there 

 was a crisp, burned spot at one end. The 

 purse was in a cotton pocket between two 

 woolen stuffs. It has been seen by hun- 

 dreds, and by all it is considered a remark- 

 able freak of this most subtile agent. 



M. J. Safford. 

 Boston, Jvly 20, 1879. 



WHY DO WELLS AND SPRINGS OVER- 

 FLOW? 

 lles.9rs. Editors. 



I HAVE read with interest the paper in 

 your November number, " Why do Springs 



and Wells overflow ? " The theory ad- 

 vanced by the writer is ingenious, but it 

 would have been more satisfactory if he 

 had told us how the water which is forced 

 out of subterranean reservoirs in the man- 

 ner he describes is first forced into them. 

 He says, " If fissures exist in rocks that 

 lead to imprisoned waters, through these 

 outlets the water must certainly flow." 

 Then, of course, such fissures can never 

 serve as inlets ; for the same cause — " the 

 resultant of the force of gravity and the 

 centrifugal force " — which sends the water 

 out, would for ever prevent any water from 

 sinking in. If the rainfall, as I suppose he 

 would admit, is more or less remotely the 

 source of supply for these reservoirs, or if 

 they have any source external to them- 

 selves, and are not miraculously inexhaust- 

 ible, his theory seems to involve a contra- 

 diction. 



I am, sir, in the interest of science, very 

 respectfully yours, 



J. T. Trowbridge. 

 Arlington, Massachusetts, October 27, 1879. 



ON ATLANTIS. 



Messrs. Editors. 



Dear Sirs : I have read the article on 

 " Atlantis " in your October number, but 

 can not agree with its conclusions. It is 

 unlikely that any such geological convul- 

 sions could have taken place in times when 

 mythology was forming, and if they had 

 done so the myth based upon them could 

 not have taken so realistic a shape. We 

 must agree that myths are petrified de- 

 scriptions of natural processes expressed in 

 language which can now only be under- 

 stood figuratively. I think, then, there is 

 room for the probability that the Atlantis 

 myth is founded on the observation of low- 

 lying clouds in a sun-flushed sky which 

 looked like islands in a golden sea. Yours 

 respectfully, A. R. Grote. 



Society Natural Sciences, * 

 Buffalo, October 1, 1879. ) 



