32 TWENIY-IOURTH REPORT ON THE StATE MuSEUM, 



To the Editor of the Journal of Cominerce : 



On the night of 'the 27th of July last, at 11 o'clock, a tree was 

 struck by lightning, in Sodus, Wayne county, of this State, and such 

 power as was displayed deserves notice. The tree was a white ash, 

 about forty feet high, and a foot in diameter. The top was rent into 

 three main parts, and these were thrown with the top inward, form- 

 ing a figure resembling the obtuse angle of a triangle, the lines being 

 met at their common point by a third, equidistant from each. The 

 lower part of the tree was torn into many thousand slivers, the writer 

 having counted those of one-fifth pare, amounting to 2,000. The top 

 was broken into fragments innumerable, the ground being strewn with 

 twigs varying from one to six inches in length. Upon reasonable 

 calculation, the tree was shattered into at least as many as 20,000 

 fragments. The trunk was split into seven main sections, clear to 

 the ground. At the roots the current divided into four parts, going 

 north, south, east and west, plowing up the ground each way ; in 

 doing this, it seemed to follow the roots of the tree. The northern 

 current went the farthest, tearing up the turf for twenty feet. The 

 current to the w^est seemed to be the heaviest ; at a few feet from the 

 tree it struck a granite stone, one foot in diameter, split off the top of 

 about two inches in thickness, tearing it into pieces varying from two 

 inches square down to a splinter ; it then struck another stone (de- 

 cayed sandstone), to all appearance about ten inches through, and 

 broke that in pieces, one being thrown about twenty feet from the 

 tree; it next hurled a stone of fifteen pounds weight from its bed. 

 Splinters were thrown ten rods or more from the tree. The speci- 

 mens of this action may be found in the State Museum, at Albany. 



W. S. H. 



October, 1870. 



