Dr. Lathrop’s account of the effects of lightning. 89 
been killed. It is to be observed; the bell wire, which conducted 
a portion of this charge, so far as it continued, was melted, and a 
great part of it consumed, leaving a black mark all along the paper, 
over which it had been fixed. The people all say, the smoke was for 
some time so thick they could scarcely discover any thing in the house 
where they were; the smell from consumed, inflammable air, was 
much like sulphur, and the smoke of gunpowder. 
Several persons in the houses which were struck, and others in the 
neighbouring houses, say they saw something like a ball of fire, which 
appeared to descend and rise again in an instant. Whether the cloud 
was positive at the time, or the earth, cannot be determined by any of 
the effects. - The boards and shingles of the roof appeared indeed to 
have been raised up by a force from beneath; but the splinters of 
the oak post, on the top of capt. Jonathan Merry’s house, appeared as 
if the force had entered at the top. I have been inclined to think, 
very little evidence can be collected from the effects of lightning, to 
prove which is fositive and which negative at the time of the explo- 
sion, the earth or the clond. On the same trees, and the same build- 
ings, we find splinters, and other effects, some of which look as if the 
force was from the cloud, and some, as if from the earth.— When two 
bodies, one positive and the other negative, approach to the striking 
distance, the explosion may be like that of gunpowder, or the thun- 
dering nitre, pressing the air in every direction, and rending those 
solid bodies, which are not calculated to receive and conduct the 
dreadful charge. The power of metal, to conduct this fire from the ar- 
tillery of the skies, is evident in the case before us. Asmall wire, not 
thicker than a common brass pin, carried that part of the charge along 
in safety, which burst the door to pieces, | where this conductor ent dec 
Although the wind was strong from the southward and west all 
the day before, and all the night, the motion of the thunder was evi- 
12 
