THE EFFECTS OF LIGHTNING. 



77 



1686, when two villages were entirely destroyed by the flood. During a storm 

 an immense chasm was opened in the side of a hill, and a mass of water issu- 

 ing from it contributed much more than the rain to the flood which ensued. 



In October, 1755, a sudden inundation produced immense ravages in Piedmont ; 

 the Po overflowed its banks. This disaster was preceded by horrible thunder ; 

 and the unanimous opinion of all who witnessed the occurrence, including the 

 celebrated Beccaria, who left the record of it, was, that its chief cause was an 

 immense volume of subterranean water, which, during the storm, suddenly 

 issued from openings which it made for itself in the bosom of the hills. 



It is impossible to contemplate these phenomena without calling to mind the 

 Mosaic record of the flood. In that record, the source of the waters by which 

 the earth was submerged is stated not to arise solely from the rain which fell 

 from the clouds — 



" In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seven- 

 teenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep 

 broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened." — Gen. vii. 11. 



The breaking up of the fountains of the great deep, as distinguished from 

 the opening of the windows of heaven, either has no meaning, or must be taken 

 to express the breaking out of the subterraneous waters by clefts and fissures 

 in the crust of the earth. That the expressions are not accidental tautology or 

 pleonasm, is proved by their repetition in the next chapter, where the termina- 

 tion of the flood is described : — 



" And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that 

 were with him in the ark ; and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and 

 the waters assuaged. The fountains, also, of the deep, and the windows of 

 heaven, were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained." — Gen. viii. 12. 



The rupture of the crust of the globe by the influence of the electricity of 

 the atmosphere, exerted upon large masses of subterraneous water, would not 

 be inexplicable, if it could be shown as a matter of fact that the same influence 

 is capable of producing a swelling and heaving upward of the unconfined wa- 

 ters of the ocean. Incontestable and recent evidence of this fact is not want- 

 ing. 



In April, 1827, the packet-ship New York, between that port and Liverpool, 

 was assailed by a violent storm, in which the sea appeared to boil as if a thou- 

 sand submarine volcanoes were in a state of eruption at its bottom. Three 

 columns of water were seen which arose toward the clouds, falling back in 

 foam, then rising anew to fall back again. 



On the Mont d'Or, in Auvergne, is an ancient building in the middle of which 

 is a cistern hewn out of a single block of stone called Caesar's cistern. In the 

 bottom of this are two holes communicating with a spring through which wa- 

 ter rises with a motion and noise like that of ebullition. Frequent observations 

 have been made on this spring by Dr. Bertrand, who states that it increases con- 

 siderably when the weather is stormy. The increase of noise which attends 

 it is known among the inhabitants of the valley as a presage of coming storms ; 

 it is a sign which they say never deceives them. 



The celebrated Duhamel du Monceau states that silent lightnings, unaccom- 

 panied by wind or rain, called heat-lightnings, have the property of breaking 

 the ears of corn. Farmers are well acquainted with this fact. On the 3d 

 September, 1771, Duhamel himself witnessed this fact; on the morning of that 

 day there was much lightning, and he afterward found that all the ears of corn 

 which were ripe were broken off at the nearest knot. The only ears which 

 remained standing were the green ones. 



These and similar effects indicate an influence emanating from the ground. 

 Such effects are not confined to corn, but probably extend to all vegetable sub- 



