436 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. ("aNNO 1773. 



of the vicarage house, attracted probably by an iron hoop that went round the 

 chimney, and by some iron bars placed within it, that formerly made part of an 

 apparatus to prevent its smoking. That the lightning fell on these iron bars is 

 very probable, because the colour of two of them that were contiguous was 

 changed, g or 10 inches in length, to a dark blue, like that of a watch spring, 

 no uncommon effect of electrical tire. 



In the north parlour, to which this chimney belonged, were the Rev. Mr. 

 Wainhouse, of Steeple Ashton, and the Rev. Mr. Pitcairn, of Trowbridge, the 

 former standing, and the latter sitting in a great chair, with his back to the fire- 

 place, near the wire of a bell. In the south parlour, separated from the other 

 by a hall, were a maid servant and a painter; in the kitchen another maid ser- 

 vant; in the coal-house, 4 or 5 yards from the house, a man servant; near the 

 barn, about 50 or 6o yards from the house, another man servant. When the 

 lightning fell on the house, the man servant near the barn heard a very loud 

 noise, equal, he supposes, to the sound of 20 cannons fired at once, and would 

 have fallen to the ground, if he had not caught hold of something to support 

 himself. The other man servant in the coal-house was struck backward, and 

 felt something, as he describes it, like a stream of warm water poured on the 

 middle of his body, which, if it was not the electric fluid itself, was the heated 

 air expanding itself with violence after the explosion. The maid in the kitchen 

 heard a great noise, but received no shock. The other maid servant, who was 

 standing near the middle of the south parlour, suffered likewise no shock, being 

 only terrified exceedingly with the explosion, and the sparks of fire, which she 

 saw on all sides of her; but the painter, who was in the same room, painting 

 near the chimney and the bell wire, was struck on the left side of his body that 

 was next the wire, from his head to his waist; he felt in particular a severe shock, 

 like the electrical one, in his left wrist, which was marked all round with blue 

 and yellow intermixed; a splinter from the wooden case, that covered the bell 

 wire, struck through his glove, and wounded his hand, and he was stunned for 

 some time. Immediately after the woman had seen the lightning come from 

 the cloud, as above-mentioned, some persons in the village, besides those in or 

 near the vicarage house, were thrown to the ground. 



The following is the account, which Mr. Wainhouse and Mr. Pitcairn give, 

 of what happened in the north parlour in which they were. As they were con- 

 versing about a loud clap of thunder that had just happened, they saw on a 

 sudden a ball of fire between them, on a level with the face of the former, and 

 about a foot from it. They describe it to have been of the size of a sixpenny 

 loaf, and surrounded with a dark smoke; that it burst with an exceedingly loud 

 noise, like the firing of many cannons at once; that the room was instantly filled 

 with the thickest smoke; and that they perceived a most disagreeable smelly 



