Effects of Lightning. 323 



for a considerable period seven tenths of a second (in 24 hours,) 

 and being 9m. 42s. slow of Greenwich time when the vessel left 

 New York, was found at Liverpool to be 24m. 33s. fast of Green- 

 wich, making a difference of 34m. i5s. 



Three gold lever watches belonging to gentlemen passengers 

 became so magnetized as to require that the principal part of the 

 steel work should be removed. These parts had become true 

 loadstones acting as magnets. It is in our recollection also that 

 in other accounts published at the time it was stated that the 

 knives and forks and other articles of steel and iron became mag- 

 netized. Happily no person was killed, although several were 

 knocked down and more or less injured. 



Remarks. — In consequence of receiving the notice* communi- 

 cated by Mr. Rich, we have been induced to republish the prin- 

 cipal facts in the case of the packet ship New York, although 

 the events happened twelve years ago. The case was so re- 

 markable, that the results ought to be preserved as. part of the 

 permanent records of science. 



No case could more decisively prove the importance of con- 

 ductors. Had the ship been furnished with the iron chain and 

 rod at the moment of the first stroke it is almost certain that 

 she would have escaped with little or no injury. Had the top- 

 mast which was then shivered (its stout iron bands two or three 

 inches broad and half an inch thick being burst asunder) been 

 protected, there can be no doubt that the lightning would have 

 shot down the conductor, saved the mast, and passed harmlessly 

 into the sea. This was decisively proved in the second case, 

 when the ship was again struck at 2 o'clock, P. M. 



Her iron chain w^s then up, and the pointed iron rod ascended 

 two feet above the highest topmast. She appears to have been 

 enveloped in a condensed electrical atmosphere ; the clouds being 

 so low that the flash and explosion were simultaneous ; and had 

 there been no conductor, the second stroke, which appears to 

 have been more powerful than the first, might have proved fatal 

 to many of those on board. The discharge which the conduc- 

 tor received seems to have been more than it was able to convey 

 away ; hence some of the people were prostrated although not 

 killed ; they were evidently affected mechanically by the explo- 



* Of which a short account was published in this Journal, Vol. xsi, p. 351. 



