78 MALDONADO. 



glass was to form tubes so diminutive, we must 

 feel greatly astonished at the force of a shock of 

 lightning, which, striking the sand in several places, 

 has formed cylinders, in one instance of at least 

 thirty feet long, and having an internal bore, where 

 not compressed, of full an inch and a half; and 

 this in a material so extraordinarily refractory as 

 quartz ! 



The tubes, as I have already remarked, enter 

 the sand nearly in a vertical direction. One, how- 

 ever, which was less regular than the others, devi- 

 ated from a right line, at the most considerable 

 bend, to the amount of thirty-three degrees. From 

 this same tube, two small branches, about a foot 

 apart, were sent off; one pointed downwards, and 

 the other upwards. This latter case is remarka- 

 ble, as the electric fluid must have turned back at 

 the acute angle of 26°, to the line of its main 

 course. Besides the four tubes which I found vei*- 

 tical, and traced beneath the surface, there were 

 several other groups of fragments, the original sites 

 of which without doubt were near. All occurred 

 in a level area of shifting sand, sixty yards by 

 twenty, situated among some high sand-hillocks, 

 and at the distance of about half a mile from a 

 chain of hills four or five hundred feet in height. 

 The most remarkable circumstance, as it appears 

 to me, in this case as well as in that of Drigg, and 

 in one described by M. Ribbentrop in Germany, is 

 the number of tubes found within such limited 

 spaces. At Drigg, within an area of fifteen yards, 

 three were observed, and the same number occur- 

 red in Germany. In the case which I have de- 

 scribed, certainly more than four existed within the 

 space of the sixty by twenty yards. As it does not 

 appear probable that the tubes are produced by 

 successive distinct shocks, we must believe that the 



