70 Remarkable effects of Lightning observed in a Farm House. 



" MoNiEMAiL Manse, Cupar-Fife, 

 26th Auffust, 1849. 



" * * We were visited on the Utli inst. with a violent thunder- 

 storm, which did considerable damage to a farm-house in my immediate 

 neighbourhood. I called shortly afterwards and brought away the wires 

 and the paper which I enclose. * * 



" I have some difficulty in accounting for the appearance of the wires. 

 You will observe that they have been partially fused ; and when I got 

 them first they adhered closely to one another. You will find that the 

 flat sides exactly fit. They were both attached to one crank, and ran 

 parallel to one another. The question is, how were they attracted so 

 powerfully as to be compressed together ? * * 



" You will observe that the paper is discoloured. This has been done, 

 not by scorching, but by having some substance deposited on it. There 

 was painted tuood also discoloured, on which the stratum was much 

 thicker. It could easily be rubbed ofl", when you saw the paint quite 

 fresh beneath. * * 



" The farmer showed me a probang which hung on a nail. The handle 

 only was left. The rest, consisting of a twisted cane, had entirely dis- 

 appeared. By minute examination I found a small fragment, which was 

 not burnt, but broken off." 



[The copper wires and the stained paper, enclosed with Mr. Leitch's 

 letter, were laid before the Society.] 



The remarkable efi'ects of lightning, described by Mr. Leitch, are all 

 extremely interesting. Those with reference to the copper wires are 

 quite out of the common class of electrical phenomena ; nothing of the 

 kind having, so far as I am aware, been observed previously, either as 

 resulting from natural discharge,?, or in experiments on electricity. It 

 is not improbable that they are due to the electro-magnetic attraction 

 which must have subsisted between the two wires diunng the discharge, 

 it being a well-known fact that adjacent wires, with currents of elec- 

 tricity in similar directions along them, attract one another. It may 

 certainly be doubted whether the inappreciably short time occupied by 

 the electrical discharge could have been sufficient to allow the wires, 

 after having been drawn into contact, to be pressed with sufficient force 

 to make them adhere together, and to produce the remarkable impres- 

 sions which they still retain. On the other hand, the electro-magnetic 

 force must have been very considerable, since the currents in the wires 

 were strong enough nearly to melt them, and since they appear to have 

 been softened, if not partially fused; the flattening and remarkable 

 impressions might readily have been produced by even a slight force sub- 

 sisting after the wires came in contact. 



The circumstances with reference to the probang, described by Mr. 

 Leitch, afi'ord a remarkable illustration of the well-known fact, that an 

 electrical discharge, when effected through the substance of a non- 

 conducting (that is to say, a powerfully resisting) solid, shatters it, with- 



