104 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1725. 



On the Effects of Lightning. By the Rev. Mr. Jos. Wasse, Rector of Aijnho 

 in Northamptonshire. N" SQO, p. 366. 



We are told by Mr. Jessop, in a former N° of the Transactions, that what 

 the common people call fairy circles, are occasioned by lightning; but I think 

 it has not yet been observed, that they continue visible 50 years, and that no 

 composition of use in fire-works will produce near so lasting an effect as I have 

 experienced. There seems to be something here, which sulphur and nitre will 

 hardly account for. Does it depend on the great quantity of the matter dis- 

 charged, or the violence with which it is impelled ? The ground is nowise torn 

 up, and the grass is only a little blasted ; whence it would seem its force is 

 nearly spent: whereas, when the burst is near us, the effect is like that of a 

 petard, as appears from the following instance. 



At Mixbury, on July 3, one William Hall, about 6o years of age, was found 

 dead in a hard gravelly field, with 5 sheep, which lay round him at about 30 

 yards distance; of which that only which lay nearest him had a visible wound 

 through the head. The shepherd lay partly on his side; the upper part of his 

 head was terribly fractured, and his right knee was out of joint; he had a wound 

 in the sole of his foot, towards the heel; his right ear was cut off, and beaten 

 into his skull, and blood flowed out of that part upon the ground. All his 

 clothes and shirt were torn into small pieces, and hung about him ; but from 

 the girdle downwards they were carried away entirely, and scattered up and 

 down the field; particularly the soles of a pair of new strong shoes were rent 

 off. His hat was torn to pieces, a hand-breadth of it was full of irregular slits, 

 and in some few places cut as with a very sharp penknife, and a little singed in 

 the upper part. His beard and the hair of his head were mostly close burnt 

 off. The iron buckle of his belt was thrown 40 yards off, and a knife in the 

 right side pocket of his breeches was broken in pieces, not melted, and the 

 handle split. Near his feet were two round holes, about a yard deep, and 5 

 inches diameter, like the perforation of a mortar shell fired perpendicularly 

 upwards, when it falls down again. About the time this accident happened, a 

 tradesman of the town observed a sort of fire-ball, as large as a man's head, to 

 burst in four pieces near the church. Two persons at Aynho were a little hurt 

 at the same time, and one of them struck down to the ground, who says, lie 

 thought he was knocked down with a beetle. Mr. Wasse himself heard the 

 hiss of a ball of fire, almost as large as the moon, which flew over his garden 

 from S. E. to N. W. 



Both the abovementioned holes were almost perpendicular for half a yard. 



