The electrical effects that enliven and some- 

 times illuminate these summits are peculiar and 

 often highly interesting. Thunderbolts light- 

 ning-strokes are rare, far less frequent than 

 in most lowland districts. However, when light- 

 ning does strike the heights, it appears to have 

 many times the force that is displayed in 

 lowland strokes. My conclusions concerning 

 the infrequency of thunderbolts on these sky- 

 piercing peaks are drawn chiefly from my own 

 experience. I have stood through storms upon 

 more than a score of Rocky Mountain summits 

 that were upward of fourteen thousand feet 

 above the tides. Only one of these peaks was 

 struck; this was Long's Peak, which rises to the 

 height of 14,256 feet above the sea. 



Seventy storms I have experienced on the 

 summit of this peak, and during these it was 

 struck but three times to my knowledge. One 

 of these strokes fell a thousand feet below the 

 top; two struck the same spot on the edge of the 

 summit. The rock struck was granite, and the 

 effects of the strokes were similar; hundreds of 

 pounds of shattered rock fragments were flung 



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