122 Star anfr Meatber Gossip 



full : " Thunderstorms are infrequent on the Pacific 

 coast of Canada and the States. At Los Angeles, 

 latitude 34 degrees N., the maximum number of 

 thunder-days in a single year was 8, in 1905. Last 

 year (1914) there was but one. As the winter season is 

 the wet season, thunderstorms are more likely to occur 

 in whiter than in summer, especially in California, 

 though this is true only of the immediate coast-strip. 

 Back in the mountains and on the desert, thunder- 

 storms of local character are not unusual in summer. 

 It should be remarked that, on or near the coast, 

 electrical storms (if, indeed, they merit the title 

 ' storms ') are very mild in character, and seldom do 

 any damage. Still, one reads occasionally of injury 

 from lightning. In December, 1913, the flagstaff on 

 a banking-house in San Francisco was struck and 

 splintered, and only a week ago (February 10th, 1915) 

 one Antonio Maldonado, a Mexican, was killed by a 

 * bolt ' near Chino, some sixty miles east of Los 

 Angeles. The newspaper despatch may be interesting, 

 as showing the rarity of death from lightning in 

 California : ' This is the first time that anyone has 

 been struck by lightning during a storm in the low 

 country, as far as anyone here can remember. Some 

 years ago a man was struck in the mountains near 

 Redlands, and there have been cases of lightning 

 striking in other parts of the mountains, but no 

 fatality has been recorded. It is an occurrence of 

 years for lightning to strike at all in the broad San 

 Bernardino Valley.' Man's memory is proverbially 

 short in respect of the weather," continued Prof. 

 Conroy, " and this quotation is no exception. Light- 

 ning strikes oftener than it would indicate ; but not 



