202 TROWBRIDGE. — HTGH ELECTROMOTIVE FORCE. 
had been caught by the rain half a mile from the house, heard only one sharp 
report. One of the discharges struck the end of the ridgepole of the barn, and 
came down the wall to a very obvious ground ; and two others landed halfway up the 
sloping roof of the nearest part of the house, one of them near, but not on a dormer 
window, and the other at some distance from any sort of a projection such as would 
ordinarily be expected to ' draw lightning.' In each place there was a spot about a 
foot across where the shingles had been forced outwards, as though by an explosion 
just under them, while inside there were two round holes four or five inches in diam- 
eter where the plaster had been blown into the room, leaving the laths completely 
bare. The first of these discharges travelled down the roof to the eaves, and jumped 
to the telephone wires, bursting out the shingles again as it left the roof. It hap- 
pened that one of the young women of the house had just closed the dormer window, 
and was in the middle of the room with her head close to that part of the sloping 
ceiling where the second of the holes was found. It is possible that this was merely 
chance, or, on the other hand, her presence may have had some influence on the 
direction of the original discharge ; at any rate, the discharge jumped to her right 
shoulder, and passed through or over the surface of her body to her left foot, then 
ran along the floor to the wall, leaving a mark such as might be made with a hot 
poker, and finally reached earth through the side of the house. The young woman 
was, of course, completely stunned, but was fortunate enough to escape serious injury. 
An interesting feature of this discharge was the regularity with which it seemed to 
explode every time it turned a corner. The explosions between the ceiling and the 
roof have already been mentioned ; the next occurred when the discharge reached the 
woman's foot. Her shoe and stocking were blown completely off, so that only the left 
half of the upper of the shoe remained attached to the sole. From her foot it ran 
led 
floor to a tin pail, which was standing on a piece of linoleum, and h 
again, overturning the pail, and demolishing the linoleum, some of i 
i found inside a water pitcher on a stand near by, while one or two shreds reached 
adjacent windowpane with force enough to stick between the 
3 glass and tl 
Finally, the point where the lightning reached the wall and started down b 
o"~ o 
the sheathing and the plaster was very plainly marked on the outside of the house, a 
couple of clapboards being forced out several inches. In the room below, the plaster 
was loosened from the laths all the way down, probably by the pressure of the heated 
air, but the appearance was quite different from that of the ceiling in the room 
above. Fortunately nothing took fire. 
"At the time of the discharge the guests were in the dining-room at the other side 
O 
