142 THUNDERBOLTS 



sometimes there is an instantaneous discharge between 

 one cloud and another, and sometimes an instantaneous 

 discharge between a cloud and the earth. 



But this idea of a mere passage of highly concentrated 

 energy from one point to another was far too abstract, of 

 course, for primitive man, and is far too abstract even now 

 for nine out of ten of our fellow-creatures. Those who 

 don't still believe in the bodily thunderbolt, a fearsome 

 aerial weapon which buries itself deep in the bosom of the 

 earth, look upon lightning as at least an embodiment of 

 the electric fluid, a long spout or line of molten fire, which 

 is usually conceived of as striking the ground and then 

 proceeding to hide itself under the roots of a tree or 

 beneath the foundations of a tottering house. Primitive 

 man naturally took to the grosser and more material con- 

 ception. He figured to himself the thunderbolt as a barbed 

 arrowhead ; and the forked zigzag character of the visible 

 flash, as it darts rapidly from point to point, seemed almost 

 inevitably to suggest to him the barbs, as one sees them 

 represented on all the Greek and Eoman gems, in the red 

 right hand of the angry Jupiter. 



The thunderbolt being thus an accepted fact, it followed 

 naturally that whenever any dart-like object of unknown 

 origin was dug up out of the ground, it was at once set 

 down as being a thunderbolt ; and, on the other hand, the 

 frequent occurrence of such dart-like objects, precisely 

 where one might expect to find them in accordance with 

 the theory, necessarily strengthened the belief itself. So 

 commonly are thunderbolts picked up to the present day 

 that to disbelieve in them seems to many country people a 

 piece of ridiculous and stubborn scepticism. Why, they've 

 ploughed up dozens of them themselves in their time, and 

 just about the very place where the thunderbolt struck the 

 old elm-tree two years ago, too. 



