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and it hung down, so that no part was above the chimney. The 

 lightning struck the eastern chimney, which was on the end of the 

 house opposite to that to which the rod was attached, and passed down 

 the inside of the flue to the kitchen fire-place, in which wood was 

 burning at the time. It threw down a great quantity of soot, filled 

 the lower rooms with smoke, and diffused, according to the account, 

 a strong smell of gunpowder. A part of the charge passed to the 

 outside through the thick stone wall which forms the back of the 

 chimney, and was evidently attracted by the iron hoop of a large 

 cask which was nearly against the wall. It made a triangular hole, 

 as if the stone and mortar had been burst outwards by an explosive 

 force, and this was directly opposite the nearest part of the hoop, It 

 then descended along the cask to the ground, breaking off all the 

 wooden hoops in its course, while those of iron were undisturbed. 

 The house is about sixty feet long; and from the state of the rod, the 

 greater part of this distance might be considered as unprotected. The 

 stroke fell on the end most remote from the approaching storm, and 

 probably the lightning was drawn to this chimney rather than the 

 other on account of the heated air which was escaping from it at the 

 time. 



Effects were also produced in this case, which can only be ex- 

 plained on the principles of induction. Three persons, the man of 

 the house, his wife and son, all took refuge on a bed in a room sepa- 

 rated from that through which the chimney passes, and upwards of 

 twenty feet from the line of the electrical discharge. They were all 

 lying across the bed, with their feet hanging down the side, and they 

 each received a shock in the knees and lower joints of the legs. The 

 female stated that the feeling was precisely like that which she had 

 experienced from a shock from an electrical jar. No marks of the 

 entrance of any part of the discharge from the cloud were found on 

 the plastering or any other parts of the room ; the effect can therefore 

 only be accounted for, by a sudden disturbance of the equilibrium of 

 the natural electricity of the space within the room. 



The induction of an electrical cloud is often exerted at an aston- 

 ishing distance. It has long been known, that a delicate gold-leaf 

 electrometer is sometimes affected by the presence of an electrical 

 cloud immediately over head ; but Dr. Ellet, professor of chemistry 

 in the college of South Carolina, has informed Professor H., that if 

 one of Dr. Hare's single-leaf electrometers be furnished with a point- 

 ed metal rod attached to the cap, and then placed on the sill of an 

 open window in the upper story, the leaf will be seen to touch the 

 o 



