196 WRITINGS OF JOSEPH HENRY. [1841 



below ; and was probably thus deflected out of its course by 

 the attraction of the iron hinges and bolts of the shutters. 

 Its course to the ground was further traced along the cas- 

 ings on each side of the front door. The wood was cracked 

 at every place where a nail happened to be in the line of the 

 discharge, and at some places the lightning appeared merely 

 to pass along the surface making a groove in the wood of 

 about one-eighth of an inch in width, and six or seven inches 

 long ; several of these grooves were observed on the side cas- 

 ings of the door. Three panes of glass were broken in the 

 window above the door, and the pieces were thrown inward. 

 The entrance within the door was filled with dust, and a 

 strong sulphurous odor was preceptible for an hour or more 

 after. No marks of a discharge were found at the foot of 

 the lightning rod. 



During the storm , several women were alone in the house, 

 and at the time it was struck three of these were in the front 

 room in the second stor}^, and consequently near the line of 

 the discharge along the gutter. Two of them were on a bed 

 placed against the partition wall, opposite to the front, and the 

 third one was standing on the floor about eight feet from the 

 front window, with her face to the same. Those on the bed were 

 unaff'ected ; but the one on the floor stated that she felt a sen- 

 sation on her right ear, as if it had been touched with a live 

 coal ; at the same time she felt a rushing sensation down 

 her side and perceived a flash at her foot, and a forked spark 

 in the air between her and the nearest window. One of the 

 persons on the bed also stated that she saw the forked spark 

 in the air, and that the one standing on the floor appeared 

 to her for an instant as if surrounded with light. The out- 

 side shutters of the window opposite to which she was stand- 

 ing, were closed, and also one leaf of the shutters of the 

 window farther east. The western window, or that from 

 which the glass was broken, was not in the same room, but 

 in a small adjoining one, over the main entrance from the 

 front door. The chamber door was shut at the time, and no 

 marks of the entrance of the electricit}'- into the room could 

 be found on the walls or on the casings of the two windows. 



