ITALIAN THERMOMETRICAL READINGS. 697 
When the Mineral Point tornado occurred, May 23d, 1878, the summit of 
the cloud, viewed from this locality, was about fourteen degrees above the hori- 
zon, and thunder was distinctly heard—distance about eighty miles. On the 
same evening, lightning flashes blazed constantly from a cloud about ten degrees 
high, directly in the east. The storm was raging at the time in the vicinity of 
Chicago, and the thunder was distinctly audible. This storm had passed over 
Whiteside county (Illinois), during the afternoon, and was accompanied with 
terrific thunder. 
In the month of June, 1867, during a protracted drouth, a shower came up 
one night accompanied with considerable electricity. It passed on to the easte 
ward, and, at sunrise next morning, the corrugated edges of the thunder-cloud 
projected slightly above the horizon. No other clouds were visible in the heav- 
ens; yet thunder was distinctly heard several times, and even after the cloud 
had entirely disappeared. This is sufficient proof, with what has gone before, 
that thunder caz be heard even one hundred and fifty miles. In the remarkable 
case here noted, a light breeze from the east, combined with certain other condi- 
tions, rendered the phenomenon possible. But yet, our school-book authors lay 
it down as a fixed law that thunder can be heard but ¢em miles! They do not 
make the least allowance for varying conditions. They do not take into consid- 
eration the fact that certain conditions of moisture of the air, either more or 
less, have their modifying effects; nor do they seem to know that when the soil 
is parched from long-coutinued drouth, it then serves as a ready transmitter of 
sound. 
The height to which a thunder-cloud ascends sometimes exceeds six miles. 
When five and a half miles high, it can readily be seen 200 miles. 
[ Zo be Continued | 
MEAN ITALIAN THERMOMETER READINGS, 
FURNISHED BY ERMINE CASE, JR. 
MILAN. FLORENCE. ROME. NAPLES. 
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