552 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
circuit. Occasionally the circuit would as suddenly close, but the telegraphic 
characters heard were the reverse of the ordinary Morse Alphabet, and the 
wire would appear to be crossed with another wire, but which was not the case, 
there being but one wire on the road, which rendered crossing impossible with- 
out human agency. 
The Snake River in its course performs nearly a half circle, and runs about 
twenty-five miles due south of Shoshone, but very few of these storms, or electri- 
cal clouds, ever passed directly over the town of Shoshone. In one or two in- . 
stances late in the season, such was the case, however, and a fine shower accom- 
panied the cloud, but all the effects of the overcharge (for that is what it seems to 
be writer to be) of electricity also accompanied it. In this case we thought the 
cloud had left the river at the Great Shoshone Falls, taking a northerly course 
until it spent its force in the Wood River Mountains. 
During these storms several experiments were tried hoping to solve the 
mystery and provide a remedy, but without success. When the "ground wire" 
was attached to the telegraph wire at Shoshone, cutting off the west, for the pur- 
pose of getting rid of a portion of this foreign current, it was found the current 
was very much stronger, suggestive of a very heavy foreign battery in contact 
with the wire. As before stated, during the prevalence of these storms the mag- 
netic current would become reversed; rendering all magnets on the line useless, 
between the points were the storm originated and where it again crossed the line, 
when the ground wire was applied to the wire as just mentioned, the magnetic 
current on a portion of the line would again assume its proper relation to the 
main batteries, but could not be used on account of the great increase of electri- 
city, which would go and come at intervals of about five minutes. The ground 
wire was then applied to the east side of Shoshone, thus cutting off all battery 
from the west end of the wire, but the same state of affairs appeared, only there 
seemed to be a continuous metallic circuit, when for a time we would notice no 
humming noise, but the overcharge of electricity would be as strong as on the 
east side. This fact astonished us and could not be accounted for until it was 
discovered by the writer that his ground wire was not in the ground at all, 
neither had any on the line been put in the ground, but only attached to a "T " 
rail, or a box-car wheel (the same car being used as a telegraph office). The 
rails are laid with the patent "Fish Plate" joint, thus making an excellent con- 
ductor of electricity, and ordinarily the ground wire thus attached to the rail or 
wheel, made an excellent ground contact. These ground wires were afterwards 
placed in the ground with better results though by no means satisfactory to the 
telegraph department, it was found that during these storms the ground (this 
section is the gold bearing field of Idaho) was very heavily charged with electri- 
city; we think the "cross" mentioned was thus accounted for, but how to 
account for the appearance of the reverse of a telegraphic alphabet of Morse 
characters on the wire is a question the writer would be glad to understand, 
it being also understood, of course, that at Pocatello where is located the dis- 
patcher's office, the characters used were plain "Morse," while west of Amer- 
