VOL. LXXVII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 21/ 



Lord S. thinks, from the different circumstances of this case, that the effects 

 produced proceeded from electricity; and that no electrical fire did pass imme» 

 diately either from the clouds into the cart, &c. or from the cart, &c. into the 

 clouds. From the circular holes in the ground, of about 20 inches in diameter, 

 the respective centres of which were exactly in the track of each wheel, and the 

 corresponding marks of fusion on the iron of the wheels, which marks answered 

 exactly to the centre of each of the holes; it is evident, he says, that the elec- 

 trical fire did pass, from the earth to the cart, or from the cart to the earth, 

 through that part of the iron of the wheels which was in contact with the 

 ground. From the splinters that had been thrown off, in many places, parti- 

 cularly where the timber of the cart was connected by nails or cramps of iron, 

 and from the various other effects mentioned in Mr. Brydone's paper, it is fur- 

 ther evident, that there was a violent motion of the electrical fluid in all, or at 

 least in different parts of the cart, and of the bodies of the man and horses, 

 though there was no lightning. 



Wonderful as these combined facts may appear, and uncommon as they cer- 

 tainly are in this country, they are however easy to be explained by means of 

 that particular species of electrical shock, which I have distinguished in my 

 Principles of Electricity, published in 1779, by the appellation of the " electrical 

 returning stroke:" and though at the time I wrote that Treatise, I had it not in 

 my power to produce any instance of persons or animals having been killed in 

 the very peculiar manner since related in Mr. Brydone's paper; I did however, 

 from my experiments mentioned in that book, venture to assert, with confidence, 

 that, " if persons be strongly superinduced by the electrical atmosphere of a 

 cloud, they may, under circumstances similar to those explained in that treatise, 

 receive a very strong shock, be knocked down, or be even killed, at the instant 

 that the cloud discharges, with an explosion, its electricity, whether the light- 

 ning falls near the very place where those persons are, or at a very considerable 

 distance from that place, or whether the cloud be positively or negatively elec- 

 trified." 



And I further stated that, " whether the distance between the person so cir- 

 cumstanced, and the place where the lightning falls, be 50 or 100 yards, or 1 

 mile, or 2 miles, or 3 miles, or more, the truth of the general proposition there 

 laid down would not be anywise affected." I have also explained in that treatise 

 how a still more singular effect might be produced, namely, how ** an explosion, 

 which happens in one place, may cause in a 2d place, at a very considerable 

 distance from the first place, a sudden returning stroke, which may knock down 

 or even kill, persons and animals at that 2d place; at the same time that other 

 persons, or other animals, situated in a 3d place, that is even immediately be- 

 tween the first place where the lightning falls, and the 2d place, just mentioned^ 



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