Prof, E» Kellogg on the Passage of Lightning. 85 



bunch of bushes, forming a matted bundle of roots and 

 earth two or three feet in diameter and raised a little above 

 the adjoining surface. Tn coming from beneath this clus- 

 ter of bushes which stood near the ditch, the fluid came so 

 near the surface as to throw off considerable lumps of earth 

 from the side of the ditch, and raise and crack the surface 

 all along its course across the bottom of it. It does not 

 seem to have come out of the ground here ; but continuing 

 under ground, it went square across the road, cracking and 

 crumbling the surface very much, eight or ten inches in 

 width, and raising a convex ridge from two to four inches 

 iiigh,a ridge exactly resembling, except in size, those pro- 

 duced by a common species of mole passing near the sur- 

 face. The fluid seems to have passed the road ten or 

 fifteen inches deep. The soil is here somewhat gravelly, 

 and the road trodden very hard. In approaching the 

 ditch on the other side of the road, the fluid threw off 

 from the edge of the road, a large cake of hard earth, eight 

 or ten feet long, and from one to four wide. This was not 

 entirely broken up ; but was pushed a little forward, bro- 

 ken into large masses, and some of it crumbled. The fluid 

 was here divided into three portions, and took as many 

 different directions. In two of these directions it left 

 marks of violent action along the surface. The third por- 

 tion plunged under a very thick and matted clump of roots 

 of small bushes, and came out on the opposite side, at a dis- 

 tance of ten feet, and in ten or fifteen <'eet more spent itself. 

 The only circumstance that can be thought peculiar in this 

 case, is the passage of the electric fluid for such a distance 

 under the surface of the earth ; and that without following 

 any such substances as commonly guide its course there, 

 as roots, stones, &c. The fluid seems not to have been 

 guided at all by any attracting substance^ but to have been 

 carried forward nearly in a straight course by a mo- 

 mentum it had received, through a medium opposing 

 the most powerful resistance; a medium in which it is 

 commonly supposed to be almost immediately dissipated 

 and lost. The fluid certainly passed thus from the wall 

 to the second ditch ; a distance of nearly fifty feet, and 

 after passing this ditch, one portion of it passed ten feet 

 through or under a very tough clump of roots. Without 

 any difficulty, I thrust a stake six or eight feet long its whole 



