VOL. XLVIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TBANSACTIONS. 337 



numbed and stiff, as if sleeping ; but perceiving in the room a cloud of smoke, 

 and hearing her mother cry, she made haste into the kitchen, which she found 

 full of smoke, stinking like brimstone. The lightning had left a mark quite 

 across the clavel of the kitchen-chimney, about half an inch wide, in an undu- 

 lating direction, broke through the partitions of the under floor, thrown down 

 the shelves, carried out all the south windows, forced up the stair-case, blown 

 out the north window, missed or spared a clock, which stood close by the win- 

 dow; and being somewhat spent, when it reached the hall, carried out the 

 windows ; moved not some Delft basins, which were in the south window, but 

 forced the door of a beaufet, at the end of the hall, an inch and a half inwards ; 

 and shook the eastern wall of the house to the very foundation. 



The clouds over Moelfra hill, and the village of Try thai (a space of a mile and 

 a half) were so heavily charged with lightning, that here they broke, both the 

 first and the second time, and the thunder-claps were within a few minutes of 

 each other, as being produced but by two portions of one and the same 

 congeries. 



The general tendency of this lightning was as the direction of the wind at that 

 time ; that is, from the north-west to the east, but where the principal explo- 

 sions were, as at the hill, and the house, many branches spread oft' in all direc- 

 tions. Nor were the shapes, in which it operated, less different than its motions. 

 Sometimes, as it appeared to Mr. B. at Ludgvan, it was pointed as a dart ; in 

 some places edged as a scythe, now but one thin sheet or stream, then 1 or 3, 

 and then one again. No\^ it fell as several separate balls of fire ; but on the 

 house as a large gush or torrent. It was all fire, yet of different powers, ac- 

 cording to the impregnation of its several portions. Subtil and penetrating as 

 the electrical fire, it affected, shocked, and permeated, all the human frame. 

 Some parts .of it only scorched wood, but did not melt iron, as with lightning is 

 very common : some tore the leather and clothes ; some cut and wounded, and 

 some killed without wound or rent ; and other parts of this lightning again, upon 

 stone, wood, leather, clothes, and flesh, only rushed and forced with the power 

 of air put into a violent agitation. All this happened in this place, and all 

 in an instant : and though the clothes were somewhat singed, as well as torn, and 

 the young man's skin round his waist was also scorched, yet, from the general 

 effects of this lightning in both places, it was rather swift, and irresistibly 

 piercing, than inflammatory. The house stands very high, without tree or hill 

 near it. 



VOL. X. 



X X, 



