146 



NATURE 



Sjfune 12, 1879 



in sections, apparently fastened together, but in fact disconnected 

 and with bad earth contact. 



A disastrous result followed the use of a similar conductor in 

 the case of Mr. Osbaldiston's house near Sheffield, in the storm 

 of Tuesday, the Sth instant, when his house was completely 

 wrecked. 



Here the flash, after coming partly down the tube and break- 

 ing the worse than useless insulators, left the conductor about 

 nine feet above the ground, and passed through a thick wall to 

 the gas-pipe, behind the drawing-room mirror, which it smashed 

 to atom=, broke some Sevres vases on the mantelpiece, melted the 

 gas-pipe and set fire to the gas, destroyed the gilded ceiling and 

 cornice, ripped up the floor above, destroyed the furniture, and 

 in short did damage estimated at about 500/. 



In this case the lightning having left the conductor to go to 

 the gas-pipe shows that the corrugated tube contained too little 

 metal — though it was seven-eighths of an inch in outside diameter, 

 and that the earth contact cf the tube was not so good as the 

 gas-pipe. 



The next case which I have had examined was Mr. Tomes's 

 house at Caterham, which was struck on Wednesday, May 2S, 

 about 10 o'clock p.m. The supposed conductor here was a 

 woven band about an inch wide, made of twelve small copper 

 wires, with two zinc wires interuoven ! forming a worse conduc- 

 tor than the copper tube. The top terminal appears to be made 

 of a soft alloy of tin and zinc, with a small steel wire in the 

 centre ! This was fastened on to a thin copper tube measuring 

 half an inch outside and about six feet long. 



To the lower end of the tube the band was attached, and here 

 again the abominable glass insulators were used. The tube was 

 fixed to a chimney and the band carried over the roof, coming in 

 contact with the iron water spout on its way down. The end of 

 the band was simply struck into the chalky soil to a depth of 

 about a foot, so that it formed a very bad earth contact. 



The lightning struck the point (the alloy round the steel has 

 been melted or broken off some time ago, for the steel point is 

 rusty), and passed down the band to the iron water-spout, which 

 went round the eaves of the roof till it came to some lead flushing 

 on the other side of the house away from the conductor ; it then 

 went up the lead, which it partially fused, and entered a small 

 water-cistern in the attic, which luckily was connected by an 

 iron pipe leading to a large iron tank under the ground, which 

 thus formed an admirable earth contact. Tlie distance to the 

 conductor to the top water-cistern was about fifteen feet. 



The damage done in this case was limited to little more than 

 breaking two panes of glass and the glass insulators, and it 

 proved that the band did not form an efficient conductor. 



The third case which I have to report occurred on the same 

 afternoon as that at Sheffield. The church of Saint Marie, 

 Rugby, was struck, and might have been burned to the ground, 

 had not the workmen employed in repairing the spire taken 

 shelter in the church from the coming storm. They had been 

 on the top and saw a dense black cloud approaching, and luckily 

 came down, and had not been long in the church which, at 

 3 P.M. was so dark that they could scarcely see each other at a 

 distance of a couple of yards, when a terrific crash was heard, 

 and as suddenly the gas under the organ loft was lighted and the 

 woodwork began to blaze. The men got the fire extinguished, 

 and found that the lightning had melted the soft metal gas-pipes 

 at a T-piece joint. 



The spire is 212 feet high, and when it was built a conductor 

 of copper-wire rope half an inch in diameter had been fixed. 

 This has been repaired at the top by the present contractor 

 attaching to it about fifty feet of rope of seven-eighths diameter. 

 No insulators had been used, and so far as could be ascertained 

 by a short inspection, the conductor appeared complete. 



About half way up the spire there is a peal of eight bells. 

 These have iron wires about one-eighth of an inch diameter 

 leading from the clappers down to the back of the organ loft, 

 but terminating in the spire a short distance from an iron gas- 

 pipe about one inch in diameter fixed against the wall of the 

 organ loft. 



In this case I think that the rope conductor carried off part 

 of the flash, and that part came down the bell-wires and went 

 through the wall to the gas-pipe, for part of the stone wall next 

 the organ, about a foot in diameter, was exploded off and thrown 

 into the organ loft. The flash then partly ran along the iron 

 pipe and melted the soft metal pipe, which is three-quarters of 

 an inch diameter and a sixteenth thick, and set fire to the gas, 

 and the remainder of the flash went to earth. 



It was fortunate that no one was working the chimes, for if he 

 had he would certainly have formed part of the circuit and been 

 killed. The church, hovi'ever, escaped with very slight damage. 



R. S. Newall 



Bud- Variation in Bananas 



In my garden there is a large plant (planted about eleven 

 years ago) of a variety of banana, distinguished by purplish 

 stems and petioles, red fruits, and by a very peculiar flavour of 

 the latter. From the centre of this plant, covered by the rotten 

 stems of former years, there are now growing green stems, with 

 green petioles ; one of them has already produced fruits, which 

 were green when immature, and yellow when ripe, and the 

 flavour of which I found to be but slightly altered. All the 

 young stems growing from the circumference of the plant are 

 purplish. 



May not many of the varieties of bananas have been produced 

 by bud-variation? Fritz MuLLER 



Itajahy, April 7 



Fertilization of Erica carnea 



All our Vacciniese and Ericaceae, with tubular corolla, 

 as far as hitherto known, are adapted to cross fertilization by 

 Apidje ; for instance, Vaccinium myrtillus and Vitis idaa, 

 Arctostaphylos uva ursi and Erica tdralix. I was, therefore, 

 much struck yesterday by the observation that Erica carnea is 

 abundantly visited and cross fertilized by a butterfly, Vanessa 

 cardui, but not by a single bee. And, indeed, the colour and 

 structure of this flower corresponds far more to the taste and 

 habits of butterflies than of Apidse. Like all other alpine 

 flowers adapted to butterflies (Saponaria ocyinoides, Silene acaidis, 

 species of Dianthus, etc.). Erica carnea is also of a gay red 

 (pink) colour, and its inclined tubular corolla is so narrowed 

 downwards that its small opening is almost completely occupied 

 by the anthers projecting from it. Hence butterflies which are 

 most distinctly attracted by the colour of this flower, as also by 

 its structure, are alone able easily to insert their thin proboscis 

 into its corolla and to reach its honey. 



Wherever in a sunny place of the Albula Valley Erica carnea 

 is in full flower, and I observed more than thirty such places 

 yesterday and to-day, Vanessa cardui is frequently found 

 visiting and fertilizing it — so frequently that sometimes five or 

 six specimens are visible at the same time. 



Hermann MiJller 

 Bergiin, in the Albula Valley, June 3 



Early Sun-Spot Records 



To the very small number of non-Chinese observations of 

 solar spots prior to the invention of the telescope we may add 

 one, which I find in the voyages of Henry Hudson, published 

 by the Hackluyt Society. He appears to have noticed such 

 a phenomenon on March 21, 1609. Hudson says, ''Then we 

 observed the sunne, having a slake, and found our heigth to bee 

 70 deg. 30 miu." A note says, -the word slake, as a substantive, 

 seems to be a north country word, meaning according to Brocket 

 "an accumulation of mud or slime from slijck, ccenum, lutum." 

 It will be remembered that there is a paper by Mr. Williams, 

 the late Secretary of the R.A.S., on Chinese observations 

 of solar spots in the monthly notices for April 1873. Mr. 

 Williams's translation records forty-five such between the years 

 A.D. 301 and 1205 inclusive. It will be seen that this list does 

 not correspond with that given in Mr. Hosie's communication to 

 Nature of June 5. In the above interval Mr. Hosie records 

 twenty-four spots not mentioned in Mr. Williams's paper ; and 

 in the latter there are nine recorded that do not occur in the 

 longer list of Mr. Hosie. The number of naked eye records of 

 sun-spots that may be brought to light will never be sufficient to 

 carry back Dr. Wolfs sun-spot periods previous to the^ intro- 

 duction of the telescope. There is, however, another Chinese 

 record that it would be interesting to see translated. Mr. Wil- 

 liams, in the paper referred to, says, "tliese observations are 

 continued in the supplement to Ma Twan Lin's Encyclopaedia," 

 and that he had found in the history of the Ming dynasty many 

 observations of solar spots, the latest being November 29, 1638. 



Samuel J. Johnson 

 Upton Ilelions Rectory, Crediton, June 9 



