ELECTRICITY. 319 



forwarded. From that data, if it can be found, more definite and accurate 

 information can be obtained. 



Note from General 0. M. Poe, U. S. A., in relation to the above: 

 " At the time of the remarkable electrical discharge, of which General Dodge 

 sent you some account, he was in command of that portion of the 16th army 

 corps, which accompanied General Sherman in his Atlanta campaign. His com- 

 mand was at Keswell, Georgia, where they built the bridge referred to, and a 

 portion of the force had crossed to the southern bank of the Chattahoochie river, 

 and it was among this latter force that the casualties occurred. 



''Reswell is situated on the Chattahoochie river, about 18 miles northeast from 

 where the railroad from Chattanooga to Atlanta crosses the Chattahoochie river. 

 It is about 15 miles due east from Marietta, and is in a very broken, almost 

 mountainous region — the southern slope of the Apalachian chain." 



From Professor John C. Cresson, Philadelphia, May 23, 1866. 



During a brief thunder-shower on Sunday, May 13th, at 4i p. m., an electric 

 discharge occurred at Franklin square, in this city, under the following circum- 

 stances : 



A small elm tree, about 40 feet high, standing about 190 feet south of a flag- 

 staff 150 feet high, was injured, and the bark torn from its southeast side for a 

 length of 20 feet. A splinter of sapwood two inches wide, one inch thick, and 

 about 20 feet long, was ripped out on the southeast side and scattered in minute 

 shreds. 



This injury does not reach the base of the tree nor its topmost branches. 



j This tree is surrounded by several others, not more than 20 feet distant and 



several feet higher, none of which are injured. At the distance of 12 feet nearly 



east of the injured tree is an iron lamp-post, wilh a gas-pipe protruding at lis 



top, nine feet from the ground. 



The thunder-cloud approached from the southwest, and the manner of the 

 occurrence seems to be thus : When the charged cloud came nearly over the 

 lamp-post and gas-pipe, the latter formed a prominent conductor, and by making 

 an open way for inductive action, determined the time and line of discharge. 

 The line was along the southeast side of the injured tree, and near enough to 

 cause the injury by violent disturbance of electrical equilibrium along and around 

 its path. Thinking the facts may be deemed worthy of record, I venture to 

 send this statement, and cannot forbear to accompany it with my notion of the 

 mode of action. 



From Henry Haas, Depauville, Jefferson County, New York, April 20, 1867. 



About sunset on the 20th of April, during the thunder-storm, an electric dis- 

 charge struck the dwelling of J. Edmunds, entering through the open front 

 door, knocking the wooden blocks from under the legs of a cooking-stove, with- 

 out upsetting the stove, then passing across the room into an adjoining apart- 

 ment and out at the window, breaking a number of lights, doing no other injury 

 to the building. Three persons sat around the stove at the moment the electric 

 fluid entered the house ; they were more or less stunned, but all escaped unhurt. 



From H. J. Kron, Albemarle, North Carolina, Apiril 24. 1867. 



At Attaway Hill, Stanly county. North Carolina, there was a heavy thunder- 

 storm from the southeast during the night of the 24th of April, commencing at 

 about 11 o'clock. There was a rapid succession of thunder and lightning, with 

 beating rain and hail of small size, but no damage done. At the distance of 

 about a mile the lightning struck the lowest of two pines some nine feet apart. 



