June 28. 1883] 



NATURE 



197 



celestial equator, and that its intersections with that equator had 

 R.A. 1 10° and 290°. The horizon was intersected by this arc 

 about 18° N. of E. and t8° S. of W., i.e. in two points situated 

 nearly 90° from the magnetic meridian (Mr. R. Capron cites 20° 

 erroneously ; a repeated calculation gives me 18 14 N. of E). 



When the arc was visible over more than 90° (which lasted no 

 longer than a few seconds), its middle part, having a breadth of 

 about 3°, was separated by a dark rift, io° long and \° broad, 

 sharp at both ends. 



At 6h. 25m the whole arc had vanished. 



At 6h. 27m. a bundle of red rays appeared between Ursa 

 Major and Ursa Minor ; it extended from Polaris to 7 Ursse 

 Minoris, i.e. over a width of almost 20 degrees ; this bundle 

 moved steadily to the west, just as had been the case with 

 several vertical beams of the former aurora. 



At 6h. 30m. clouds began to appear in different parts of the 

 sky: first in Auriga, in the E.N.E. ; a moment afterwards 

 another in Aries. In the beginning it was not evident if they 

 were clouds or auroral phenomena, but they proved soon to be 

 clouds fl ating off southwards by the north wind. 



The aurora had now lost much of its splendour ; I noted >t 11 

 a few beams, viz. : — 



At 6h. 32 'Sm. a beam about 10 east of Polaris ; at 6h. 33m. 

 the red beam, di- covered at 6h. 27m., had so far shifted to the 

 west that it went through the head of the Dragon ; at 6h. 37m. 

 tliere was 'till a faint beam extending from o Coronre (visible in 

 the twili.ht) to Vega, which stood higher and more to the 

 south. 



At 6h. 38m. there was a white band between o Aurigse and 

 a Persei ; I was not sure if it was auroral or a cloud. 



At 6h. 40m. there appeared two new very broad beams in the 

 north-west. 



Now the east becomes more and more covered; from the 

 north to the we-t there extends itself a whitish glow to a height 

 of 40 degrees; in the north-east this glow is much feebler and 

 lower ; therefore I estimate it as not higher than from 20 to 30 

 degrees. It flows off very indistinctly. The polar light seemed 

 now to have passed its greatest intensity ; the observations were 

 no longer continued. 



A 1 art of the night a white auroral light remained still visible 

 over the northern sky ; at 9h. the sky was entirely overcast. 



At midnight it w-as clear again, and the whole northern sky 

 was always covered by an auroral light ; I am told that it was 

 still there at 5I1. in the morning. 



It is said to have been then in the north-west, of a purple 

 colour, in the north-east more pale yellow. J. A. C. O. 



Utrecht, November 18, 1882 



Effects of Lightning 



Perhaps your readers will be interested in the fallowing re- 

 markable incident of the action of lightning which has just 

 occurred at the village of Great Lumley, near Chester-le-Streef, 

 in Durham. 



A severe thunderstorm passed over the valley of the Wear on 

 Saturday, June 9. Great Lumley is si'uated on the top of an 

 elevated plateau on the east side of this valley, and its houses 

 are conspicuously exposed to the weather. At about 11 a.m., 

 during the progress of the stoim, an old stone house with steep 

 pantiled roof, known as the "Old Hall," was struck by a thun- 

 derbolt. The house is only of moderate height, having three low 

 stories ; but it is on some of the highest ground in the village, and 

 is also one of the loftiest houses therein. It is on the south s : de 

 of the principal street forming the village, and it has two gable 

 ends, which are, however, partially concealed at their lower 

 portions by lower houses joining on. There is a yard in rear of 

 the "Old Hall," separating it by a few yards from some smaller 

 houses mostly inhabited hy pitmen. The coal lies about seven- 

 teen fathoms below the surface, and there are several pits in the 

 neighbourhood. 



The principal damage done to the house is in the internal 

 woodwork ; but a hole has also been made in the tiled ro >f, the 

 upper courses of a brick chimney-stack built over the centre 

 of a brick partition wall which divides the building into two 

 separate dwelling-houses have been thrown down, and some 

 broken bricks and tiles were hurled as far as sixty feet di>tant 

 to the southward. The bui'ding is about 220 years old, and is 

 externally in a rather dilapidated condition. The masonry is 

 rough sand-tone rubble, the surface of which has in places been 

 much disintegrated by age and weather. The building is Lord 



Durham's property, and is let in tenements. At the time of the 

 accident the whole of its eastern dwelling-house was unfurnished 

 and uninhabited. This was where the principal injuries were 

 effected. The western compartment is occupied ; and the inmates 

 were knocked down by the concussion, various pieces of furniture 

 being also damaged by the same cau-e ; but nothing serious 

 occurred. The building, being so old, has also experienced 

 considerable damage externally from the tremendous concussion 

 which appears to have accompanied the explosion of the thun- 

 derbolt. Loose tiles and stones have been dislodged ; an old 

 wooden frame in a window-opening in the loft at the east gable 

 has been thrown to the ground below, and a considerable patch 

 of surface masonry immediately above the window-opening has 

 been shaken down. Falling bricks and stones have also made some 

 holes in adjoining roofs ; and the signs of injury sh> >wn by all 

 thee can es led the people in the adjacent houses to believe 

 that thee damages constituted the extent of the harm done by 

 the expl >sion. 1 inspected the scene just three days after the 

 event. The eastern and unused portion of the " Old Hall " had 

 not then been examined internally, and the doors were still 

 locked. 



On visiting the interior I found that gteat injury had been 

 done to a wooden rafter of the roof, close to the hule already men- 

 tioned ; to a wooden upright post resting on the second floor and 

 supporting this rafter ; and to a wooden girder and joist sustain- 

 ing the foot of the post. The plaster on the walls adjacent to 

 the post and girder was also torn off; but below the first 

 floor no certain trace of the explosion could be found. The 

 damaged rafter is on the south side of the roof, a> d the nearest 

 one on the east of the chimney. Its scantling is 6 inches broad 

 by 3 inches deep ; and at about one-third of its length from the 

 eaves it is supported by a longitudinal purlin (on a level with 

 the floor of the loft), and also (just inside the purlin) by the 

 upright post already mentioned. From the level of the upper 

 side of the purlin, for a length of about 6 feet upwards, the 

 rafter is completely shivered, and two large pieces are torn out 

 of it. One, the lower piece, is 3 feet 6 inches long, 3 inches 

 wide, and about lh inch deep. This has been cut very neatly 

 out of the west side of the under face of the rafter, leaving the 

 new under face almost smooth ; and the lower end of the scar 

 thus formed is scooped out in a dcn-etailed form flush with the 

 horizontal top of the adjacent purlin. No broken pieces corre- 

 sponding to this scar could be found anywhere about the small 

 loft ; but some very small splinters of wood were di-cvered on 

 the floor to the north-east of the rent rafter and in the direction 

 of the window-opening already mentioned. This latter was 

 quite open to the outer air when the accident happened, and im- 

 mediately after it occurred numerous small splinters of wood 

 were found in the yard to the eastward of the opening. These 

 had evidently been blown out of it with the old window frame. 

 Some were found against a low wall horizontally distant 63 feet 

 from the opening. These splinters were not visible when I 

 arrived, as they had at once been secured for firewood by the spec- 

 tators ; but I brought away one of the fragments four d on the 

 loft floor. Its fibres are quite di severed from each other, as if 

 the wood bad been completely permeated along their direction by 

 the force of the explosion. The other ! car in the rafter is cut out 

 of the under face on the east side, partly alongside the first scar, 

 but extending higher up and ending just under the hole in the 

 roof tiles already mentioned. This second scar is 3 feet long 

 by 4 inches by about 2 inches, and two pieces of « ood were 

 found lying on the loft floor about 8 feet distant to the north- 

 east, which exactly fitted this scar. The hole through the roof 

 is made at a point where a small iron nail fixed a lath (for the 

 tiles) to the rafter. 



The upright pot underneath the rafter has a scantling of 8 

 inches by 3 inches; it is split and torn right up from its foot at the 

 second floor (the next floor below the loft) to its junction wi h 

 the rafter, to which it was fixed by several 2§inch iron nail-. 

 The exact joint between the principal splits in the post and 

 rafter seemed to be at the position of one of these nails, which 

 was almost laid bare. I brought this nail aw ay. Its upper t» o- 

 thirds is quite rusty, whilst its lowest third (nearest the point) is 

 clean and, in minute places nearly bright. A heavy piece mea 

 suring 7 feet 6 inches by 6 inches by about 3 inches was torn 

 clean off ihe north-we-t angle of this upright, and was found 

 lying on the second floor about 3 feet off to the northward. The 

 upright forms an angle post on the east side of a sort of dormer 

 or porch projecting out of the south side of the roof, and 

 formerly giving access from the outside to the second floor by a 

 step-ladder. The latter, however, had disappeared shortly 



