210 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



an account of a ball which he observed during a very violent 

 storm on December 20, 1888, at half past six in the evening, while 

 he was driving from Versoix to Genthod. As he passed the 

 entrance gate of a large mansion he became aware of a very 

 bright and persistent illumination, quite different from the inter- 

 mittent light of the incessant lightning flashes. 



Thinking it was a fire, he turned and saw, about one thousand 

 feet away, a ball of fire some eighteen inches in diameter. It 

 floated about half its diameter above the ground, and moved par- 

 allel with his own course with the swiftness of a hawk, leaving 

 no trace behind it. 



At a point about twenty-five yards ahead of him it burst with 

 an appalling crash. " It seemed to me," the report concludes, " to 

 throw out lines of fire. We felt a violent shock, and were blinded 

 for several seconds. As soon as I could distinguish anything, I 

 saw that the horses were standing at right angles to the carriage, 

 with their heads toward the hedge. Their ears drooped, and they 

 exhibited every symptom of intense fright." At the same time, a 

 little less than a mile away, a farmer found himself surrounded 

 by a violet light. He heard a loud explosion, and was thrown 

 bodily ten feet, alighting on a piece of soft turf, more frightened 

 than hurt. 



On July 1, 1891, a fireball entered a carpenter's cabin near 

 Schlieben. The carpenter was sitting on the edge of a bed on 

 which a child was sleeping. A ball of fire sprang suddenly and 

 with a loud noise from the fireplace to the bed, which was imme- 

 diately shattered. Then the ball rolled very slowly to the oppo- 

 site wall of the room, through which, or the floor, it apparently 

 vanished with another fearful crash without setting fire to any- 

 thing. The man's wife and another child were sleeping in a sec- 

 ond bed and the baby in a cradle, all in the same room, but none 

 of the five persons was wounded or even stunned. All complained 

 of headache and deafness on account of the heavy sulphurous 

 vapor which filled the room, but they soon recovered. Some frac- 

 tures were discovered about the stove and chimney. 



Less fortunate were the children in a schoolhouse in Bouin, 

 France, who were visited by a fireball while at their afternoon 

 prayers. It was preceded by a shower of lime, wood, and stones. 

 The ball, which was small, rolled along under the benches, killing 

 three of the children, and went out through a window pane, in 

 which it merely made a round hole, whereas all the other panes 

 were shattered. 



On January 2, 1890, a ball appeared in an electro- technical 

 establishment in Pontevedra, Spain. It was seen to strike the line 

 wires about nine o'clock in the evening under a clear sky, but no 

 one could say just how it struck or from what direction it came. 



