838 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVIII. No. 728 



and Grey Bull, flow from their eastern side 

 and at length join the Big Horn Eiver. The 

 height of these mountains I do not know, but 

 as they rise well above timber line, I think it 

 likely that they are near 10,000 feet high. 



Instead of rewriting the story, I transcribe 

 directly from my journal (written on return to 

 camp) such passages as refer to the electric 

 occurrences which I observed during the after- 

 noon of Thursday, August 30, 1888. 



We went up toward the head of the valley, 

 watching the big thunder cloud that we trusted 

 was traveling parallel with our course. One last 

 sheep moved away out of sight, in front, and it 

 became very much colder. Two or three valleys 

 off to the right, long black streamers let down 

 from the cloud, waving mistily just over the pines, 

 and if you looked hard, you saw the water come 

 down in them; but still an uninvaded strip re- 

 mained between that and where we were, where 

 the air was clear and no drizzling had begun. 

 We went on a little way, and when I looked across 

 again the strip had narrowed and gray bars of 

 rain were falling between us and pieces of wood- 

 land that had been unblurred the last time I had 

 seen them. ... I put on my rubber coat. (This 

 was made like a pea-jacket.) When we got to 

 the head of the valley there was a very much 

 larger cloud coming down on us, you may say, 

 across the wind. We turned, following the ridge 

 toward the big Needle which we had gradually 

 got between ourselves and camp. Below us began 

 a new valley at the bottom of a cauldron. On 

 the other side of the cauldron the air became 

 thick white; then a sheet of storm came across. 

 The cauldron went out of sight, and the hail 

 began at a rate to chip pieces off one's ear. The 

 ground swarmed with bouneing pellets, and they 

 soon filled up the holes between the stones which 

 lay on the hillside. We got down, and huddled 

 each under his horse, and the horse did as much 

 huddling by himself as he knew how. We could 

 see nothing but a general shooting slant of white. 

 All the lines of the mountains were gone. I got 

 the brim of my hat down against my collar, but 

 not before a train of hailstones had rolled down 

 my spine. . . . The lightning was constant, and 

 getting nearer. We were the only raised objects 

 in the district, and we had four guns. So George 

 got away from the group of horses, guns and men 

 and crouched along in the hail, and I crouched 

 after him. Every now and then a particularly 

 ugly crash of thunder would happen, and this 



would seem to prod George a few feet further 

 away from the dangerous mass of attraction. I 

 did not at all relish the situation. I was chilled 

 all the way through, my shoes had been cold a 

 long while and now grew steadily wet. I dragged 

 off a limp mass of slush, once my glove, and I 

 pondered on the phenomenon of lightning. ... I 

 turned round and saw Richard's bent head, and 

 Paul wearing a most miserable expression (these 

 two men were Indians), and the shrinking horses, 

 with their tails tucked in and their heads tucked 

 down, and all four feet converging into a pivot 

 under their middles. . . . This gave me a notion 

 of my own appearance, and I roared enough to 

 have made me warm in any other weather but 

 what was going on. The hail melted on my 

 rubber jacket, and trickled down on my breeches 

 where the seat of them was thin by the constant 

 saddle. So far as the look of things went, it was 

 mid-winter and no sign of spring. The pelting 

 lasted a long time, at the same unslackened rate, 

 but at last it began to fall more gently and wetter, 

 and the view thinned out in front till part of the 

 valley came into sight, very faint and with im- 

 penetrable hail coming down beyond. Everywhere 

 was white that was not too steep for the stxiff 

 to lodge upon. Paul and Dick went off to look 

 over the divide and see if we could go home a new 

 way. And then a thing happened which must 

 seem incredible to any but the man who has 

 knowledge of it by theory or experience. I was 

 wandering about with George, noting the decrease 

 of the storm, when something near my head set 

 up a delicate hissing or spitting. I listened and 

 found it was in my hat. . . . The hail came very 

 fine and gently now, but it began stinging behind 

 my ear worse than it had done at all. Getting 

 tired of this, I turned my face to the wind that 

 was left, and found the hail perfectly harmless, 

 while the stinging behind grew a little sharper. 

 My hat continued to hiss. Feeling very uncanny, 

 I called out to George to know if anything was 

 the matter with his head, explaining what was 

 going on around mine. He nodded uneasily, and 

 drew away from me as if I were an explosive. 

 I connected my hat with the stinging somehow, 

 and pulled it off. The hissing was in the brim, 

 and died out as I stared at the leather binding 

 and the stitching. The pricking behind my ears 

 stopped too. George, a little below me on the 

 hill, complained with his hand up to his head 

 that it was getting unbearable. "Take off your 

 hat," I said. He did, but relief not coming at 

 once, "Take off your spectacles," I added. These 



