Natural History. 183 
and penetrated the soil at its foot. A man, who was standing at 
the door of a building, about fifty steps off, saw a juniper bush 
still burning under the tree, but it was soon extinguished by the 
rain. The neighbours immediately came together at the tree; 
they found two narrow deep holes in the earth, and affirmed that 
one of them was hot to the touch. 
On examining the tree and place two or three days afterwards, 
slight traces of the passage of the lightning was found on the tree, 
and the juniper bushes and herbs in the neighbourhood of the tree, 
were generally charred. The holes in the earth, however, pre- 
sented no signs of combustion, not even on the small roots which 
appeared on their inner surface. The soil was a coarse yellow 
sand, reposing, at the depth of two feet, on a bed of vegetable earth. 
On removing the sand, §., it was observed that oneof the holes 
did not descend more than a foot, and offered nothing remarkable, 
but a little lower down, the commencement of a vitreous tube was 
found; the tube could not be removed whole, because of its fragi- 
lity, but the fragments were collected, and it was found to have 
penetrated even into the vegetable earth, where, though many 
grains of sand had been agglutinated, they had not formed a regu- 
Jar tube. The fragments were covered with a black matter. The 
other aperture, which had been fonnd hot after the descent of the 
lightning, did not seem to be acecmpanied by, or terminate in any 
vitreous tube. 
Some of the fragments withdrawn were three inches long, and all 
were distinguished from similar tubes or fragments from other 
places, by their thinness and fragility; they were scarcely as thick 
as paper, and were semi-transparent. The surrounding sand ap- 
peared blackened here and there; the interior of the tube was 
right and shining from a thin coat of flux. It was of a pearl gray 
colour and beset with black points. The tubes were flattened, and 
extended on opposite sides in a zigzag direction. The sides of the 
tubes, in some parts, almost came together, but no branches were 
sent off, except where it had penetrated the vegetable earth, and 
at that part it became almost filamentous. The fragments together 
formed a length of above 214 inches. On examination, the black 
powder appeared to be carbonaceous, for it resisted the action of 
acids, but disappeared before the blow-pipe,—Bzb. Univ, xxiv, 106; 
' 
