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electricity into the room could be found on the walls or on the casings 

 of the two windows. 



The principal facts here detailed, although perhaps not unusual oc- 

 currences, afford interesting illustrations of the action of electrical 

 induction. First, the horizontal gutter and the vertical tin pipe, both 

 filled with water, formed a long continuous electrical conductor, ex- 

 tending from the point where the lightning first struck to the lower 

 farther corner of the front of the house; and this conductor, on ac- 

 count of its length, would be intensely affected by the induction of the 

 distant cloud, or rather by that of the approaching discharge. If the 

 electricity of the cloud were positive, then that of the water in the 

 nearest end of the gutter would be negative, and, consequently, a 

 powerful attraction would determine the lightning on the point where 

 it struck. The house, under these circumstances, might have been 

 damaged even had the rod been much higher than it was, and its 

 connection with the earth much more perfect. 



Again, the phenomena exhibited to the females in the upper cham- 

 ber were also most probably due to inductive action. After a proper 

 allowance for imperfect observation, occasioned by the fright and con- 

 fusion of the moment, it is still evident that the female on the floor 

 was in some degree affected by the discharge, although none of the 

 electricity of the cloud actually entered the room, since no traces 

 of it were to be found on the walls or other parts. The effects may 

 therefore be referred to the inductive action of the lightning at a dis- 

 tance and through the wall, as it passed along the gutter across the 

 front of the house. When a shock of electricity from a Leyden jar 

 is passed through a slip of tinfoil pasted on one side of a pane of glass, 

 the hand on the other side will receive a slight sensation from the la- 

 teral induction through the glass. In the same way, it may be sup- 

 posed, that the effects perceived by the females were due to the dis- 

 turbance for an instant of the natural electricity of the chamber, by 

 the passage of a large charge along the outside of the house. 



The discharge, as has before been stated, came from the south- 

 west, and in its passage it crossed obliquely some houses on the op- 

 posite side of the street. In one of these, two persons were sensibly 

 affected by the shock ; and another, in a room with the windows 

 closed, according to her own statement, saw sparks of electricity on 

 the floor. The same explanation will also apply to these effects. 



During the same storm, another house about three miles south- 

 west of the village was struck, and this also was furnished with an 

 imperfect conductor. The upper part of the rod had been broken, 



