4o6 



NATURE 



\ March 25, 1875 



corroded, Iheir original diameter being reduced here and there 

 to \ inch. 



l-'ebruary 25th was a rainy d»y during the forenoon, with 

 heavy wind from the south-east, but in the afternoon the sky 

 cleared. There had been no sign of tliunder all day. At 5 

 P.M. my wife, my son, and myself were standing under the 

 flagstaff and within 10 feet of a mooring chain, v/atching the bay, 

 when the vane was suddenly struck by lightning, which broke 

 the mast short off in two places, tearing and splitting the wood 

 between the vane and the iron guy ropes. Through these the 

 discharge then passed to the ground, but three out of the four 

 mooring chains were broken. Not only one, but many links 

 in each of these chains were snapped, both above and below 

 ground, and several of the links were broken in two places 

 at once. The fractures were crystalline and showed no signs of 

 heat. On the garden path, and within a yard of myself, stood an 

 iron roller, towards which the discharge ploughed two shallow 

 furrows in the gravel ; one of these is 8 feet long and terminates 

 in a splash of gravel upon the roller. 



The broken mast and vane fell to the ground close to us. The 

 former was blackened from end to end around half its circumfer- 

 ence, and the edges of the discoloration form ragged splashes. 

 The brass tube forming the vane was ripped open, and all solder 

 about the vane melted. Below the point where the wire ropes 

 were attached to it the mast was uninjured. Shivered frag- 

 ments of the staff were found on the ground as far as 150 

 feet to windward. Heavy hail followed the flash, the wind 

 falling instantly to a dead calm ; a second but distant flash was 

 seen twenty minutes later, after which there was no more 

 lightning. The discharge startled the whole village of Paignton ; 

 the coast guard officer compares the explosion to that of a 300- 

 pounder gun; and at Torquay, 3^ miles distant, a scientific friend 

 speaks of both flash and crash as most terrific. 



I must now attempt to describe the effects on ourselves and the 

 impressions on our senses, though I am conscious of difficulty in 

 avoiding subjective matter here. Of the three, my wife only was 

 "struck," and fell to the ground, my son and myself remaining 

 erect, and all three retaining con'^ciousness. For more than 

 half an hour my wife lost the use of her lower limbs and left 

 hand, both of which became rigid. From the feet to the knees 

 she was splashed with rose-coloured tree-like marks, branching 

 upwards, while a Urge tree-like mark, with six principal branches 

 diverging from a common centre, thirteen inches in its largest 

 diameter, and bright rose red, covered the body. None of us 

 are certain of havmg seen the flash, and my wife is sure she saw 

 nothing. As to the noise, my wife heard a " bellowing" sound 

 and a "squish," recalling fireworks; my son also heard a 

 " bellow," while I seemed conscious of a sharp explosion. My 

 wife describes her feeling as that of "dying away gently into 

 carkness," and being roused by a tremendous blow on the body, 

 where the chief mark was afterwards found. My son and myself 

 were conscious of a sudden and terrific general disturbance, and 

 he affirms that he received a severe and distinctly electrical 

 shock in both legs. My left arm, shoulder, and throat especially 

 suffered violent disturbance, but I did not think it was electrical. 

 As I turned to help my wile, who was on the ground, I shouted, 

 as I thought, that I was unhurt, and hoped tliey were also, but 

 it seems 1 only uttered inarticulate sounds, and my son, in his 

 first attempt to answer, did the same. This, however, was only 

 momentary ; in an instant we both spoke plainly. 



Neither of us relerred the occurrence immediately to its 

 true cause, but the idea of being fired at was present to all 

 our minds, my wife indeed remamed of opinion that .she was 

 shot through the body, until she heard me speak of lightning. 

 An infinitesimal lapse ol time enabled my son and myself to 

 recognise lightning ; but I cannot say whether I did so btfore or 

 after my first glimpse of the wreck on the ground. Neither of 

 us heard or saw tlie mast fall, though it descended fifty feet, and 

 fell on hard gravel close to us. My son and myself Lo:h experi- 

 enced a momentary feeling of intense anger against some " person 

 or persons unknown," further showing that we primarily referred 

 the shock to some conscious agency. I ought perhaps to add, 

 that neither of us felt any sensation of fear at the time ; but we 

 were all very nervous for several days after. 



I have endeavoured to keep to fact throughout, but T venture 

 to add a remark made by my wife as we raised her from the 

 ground : " I feel quite sure that death from lightning must be 

 absolutely painless ; " and I offer it as an unconscious corrobora- 

 tion of views on this subject which our experience seems to 

 strengthen, 



Though no electrician, I conclude from the splash of gravel on 

 the garden roller that the discharge was from cloud to earth, and 

 the oxidised mooring-chains being inadequate to carry it all to 

 ground, my wife formed a conductor for one of many sprays flying 

 in all directions from the broken links. 



Paignton, March 10 D. PiDGEON 



Mr. G. Darwin's Paper on Cousin Marriages 

 The report in the Times of my paper on Cousin Marriages, 

 read before the Statistical Society on Tuesday, the l6th inst., 

 contains an important error. It is there made to appear that out 

 of 8,170 lunatics and idiots in England and Wales, 4,308 were 

 offspring of first cousins. This should have run : — Answers with 

 respect to the parentage of 4,308 out of the 8,170 patients were 

 obtained ; 142 to 149 of these were stated to be offspring of first 

 cousins, that is to say, nearly 3 J per cent. Similarly, out of 514 

 patients in Scotland, 5^ per cent, were found to be offspring of 

 first cousins. 



I had hoped that the monstrous nature of the mistake would 

 have sho^vn it to be a niisreport ; but although the error was 

 pointed out in the next day's Tinus^ I have already had my 

 attention drawn to it several times, and you would therefore be 

 confening a great favour on me by giving further publicity to the 

 correction in your columns. George Darwin 



Down, March 21 



Mounting Acari for the Microscope 



I HAVE much pleasure in detailing, for the benefit of your 

 correspondent Mr. R. C. Fisher, a method I practised exten- 

 sively some years since, and with the best possible results, in 

 preparing Acari for the cabinet. The section then occupying 

 my attention was the group of the Hydrachnida-, or " Water 

 Mites," and to illustrate which I possess some hundred slides 

 representing twenty or thirty species in various conditions of 

 development. In first attempting to preserve these as permanent 

 objects for the microscope I encountered difficulties similar to 

 those of Mr. Fisher ; the little animals being hard to kill, and 

 their limbs in death doubling beneath to the great detriment of 

 their personal appearance. As an experiment, I tried immersing 

 them in boiling water, and was rewarded by finding this treat- 

 ment to achieve everything that could be desired, death being 

 instantaneous, and with the limbs rigidly extended in perfect 

 symmetry. This method proved equally efficacious with various 

 earth mites, such as Tfotfibidiiim. A watch-glass, spirit lamp, 

 and camel's h.air brush is all the apparatus necessary. The occu- 

 pation of other and larger "fish to fry" has unfortunately pre- 

 vented my prosecuting the study of this most interesting group 

 of the Arachnida so far as I first proposed. 



Manchester Aquarium W. Saville-Kent 



The "Wolf" in the Violoncello 

 Can any of your readers explain the reason of the unpleasant 



jarring noise which is sometimes found in certain notes of the 



violoncello, termed by musicians the wolf ? 



In an instrument in my possession the vol/ exists on one note 



liis is not due 



only, viz., the F of the bass clef 



to a defect in the string, as the same note stopped on the G 

 string still produces the 7uo//. 



It seems, therefore, that from some defect in the instrument 

 itself, it is unable to vibrate in conjunction with a string having a 

 certain rate of vibration, though it will take up the vibrations, of 

 every other but this particular note. Herbert F. Fryer 



Coloured Shadows 



Six Grove's cells were connected with one of Ladd's large 

 induction coils, and the secondary current, condensed by two 

 lirge Leyden jars, was rent, in the usual way, between two pairs 

 of metallic elearodes, in order to examine their spark .spectra. 



Two of the electrodes were of platinum : these may be called 

 pair A. 



Of the other pair, B, one electrode was of platinum, and the 

 other of the nittal to be examined. 



Place a piece of white paper equidistant from, and on one side 

 of, the two sparks. Hold the finger so that a shadow of it may 



