318 A FARMER'S YEAR 



every cause to be satisfied. I only hope that my own will do as 

 well. 



Near to the Hall in the park at Ellingham stands a great 

 poplar tree, on which the lightning fell some weeks ago. In 

 this instance the current behaved rather strangely, for, lighting on 

 the extremity of a bough, it passed round and round it and 

 the trunk, leaving grooves such as might have been cut by a 

 carpenter, until it came to a strand of barbed wire, which was 

 fastened to the bole by a staple. Tearing out this staple, it fled 

 along the wire to an iron stanchion, down which it descended to 

 the earth, burning the grass and taking all the rust off the 

 stanchion as it went. Luckily, there was no living thing beneath 

 the tree. A few years ' ago Mr. Smith was not so fortunate, for 

 six or seven cattle that were grazing in the park, which seems to 

 be a favourite playground for the lightning, were destroyed by a 

 single flash. They were found with foam upon their mouths and 

 their bodies bent into a bow, as though by tetanus or the effects 

 of strychnine. 



This is the third time in my life that I have known lightning 

 to pass round and round trees or poles, cutting neat spiral grooves 

 in their substance. In Ditchingham Park, however, about three 

 years ago, it played a stranger trick, for in this instance the current 

 travelled down the centre of an oak, and by the exercise of its 

 gigantic force drove the heart of the tree through the outer wood 

 and bark, where it appeared in numberless white splinters. Only 

 once did I ever see anything resembling the result produced by 

 that stroke. On an occasion when I was shipwrecked the 

 vessel, of about 1,000 tons burden, hung upon a point of rock, 

 with sixty-fathom water beneath her stern. Presently her back 

 broke, throwing so fearful a strain on to the mast and rigging 

 that something had to give. The shrouds would not part, for they 

 were of steel wire, and the mast did not snap, because the pull 

 upon it was vertical and from both sides. Therefore under the 

 awful pressure the very fibre of the wood of which it was formed 

 seemed to disintegrate, at any rate grey splinters forced from 



