304 Miscellanies. 
2. Extraordinary case of electrical excitement, with preliminary 
remarks by the Editor.—The facts stated below, were, by my re- 
quest, kindly communicated for this Journal by Dr. Willard Hos- 
ford, a respectable physician of Orford, New Hampshire, the place 
where the occurrence happened. Being in that place in Septem- 
ber, and finding the belief in the facts to be universal, particularly 
on the part of persons of judgment and science, (as at the neigh- 
boring University, Dartmouth, at Hanover, eighteen miles south,) 
I became desirous of preserving a record of them. 
Dr. Hosford remarks in the letter accompanying his communica- 
tion, that abundant evidence from the most intelligent persons is at 
hand for the support of every point in the case. He observes also, 
that the appearance of the aurora during which the electrical ex- 
citement of the lady took place, ‘“‘ was precisely the same as that 
described by some gentlemen at New Haven.” 
Speaking of it Dr. Hosford adds, that ‘‘ the heavens were lighted 
with a crimson aurora of such uncommon splendor, as to excite no 
ordinary emotions in every observer, and we had, he observes, in 
addition, an electrical exhibition much less dazzling, but more sin- 
gular and to the parties concerned more interesting.” 
A lady of great respectability, during the evening of the 25th of 
January, 1837, the time when the aurora occurred, became sud- 
denly and unconsciously charged with electricity, and she gave the 
first exhibition of this power in passing her hand over the face of 
her brother, when, to the astonishment. of both, vivid electrical 
sparks passed to it from the end of each finger. 
‘The fact was immediately mentioned, but the company were so 
sceptical that each in succession required for conviction, both to see 
and feel the spark. On entering the room soon afterward, the com- 
bined testimony of the company was insufficient to convince me of 
the fact until a spark, three fourths of an inch long, passed from 
the lady’s knuckle to my nose causing an involuntary recoil. This 
power continued with augmented force from the 25th of January to 
the last of February, when it began to decline, and became extinct 
by the middle of May. 
The quantity of electricity manifested during some days was 
much more than on others, and different hours were often marked 
by a like variableness; but it is believed, that under favorable cir- 
cumstances, from the 25th of January to the first of the following 
April, there was no time when the lady was incapable of yielding 
electrical sparks. ; 
