Danger from Lightning. 445 



year, 1819, the reported victims are the following: — On the 28th of 

 June, three horses, near to Vitry-le-Francois; on the 11th of July, as 

 already stated, nine individuals in the church of Chdteauneuf ; on the 

 26th of the same month, a man killed in the open fields at Maxey sur 

 Vaize (Meurthe) ; on the 27th, a husbandman, his wife, and son, who had 

 taken refuge in the portico of a chapel near Chatillon sur Seine ; on the 

 1 st of August forty-four sheep, near Beaumout-le-Roger (Eure) ; on the 

 2d of the same month, a labourer who had taken refuge under a tree at 

 Bourdeaux ; on the same day, a husbandman of Vigneux, near Savenay, 

 who was killed in his chamber; "and, still under the same date, two 

 young students and two girls, between ten and twelve years of age, 

 in the house of M. 1' Abb§ Coyrier, at ... . Department du Cantal ; 

 and, finally, on the 27th of September, at five in the morning, a female 

 domestic servant, who was killed in her bed, at Confolens, Charente. 



But if few persons perish from thunder-storms in the heart of our 

 towns, the number of houses and edifices which are struck, and seriously 

 injured, is, on the contrary, very considerable. During the single 

 night from the 14th to the 15 th of April 1718, the lightning struck 

 twenty-four steeples in the space comprehended along the coast of 

 Brittany, between Landernau and St. Pol-de-Leon. During the night 

 between the 25th and 26th of April 1760, the lightning fell three times, 

 in the short interval of twenty minutes, upon the chapel and other 

 buildings of the Abbey of the Notre-Dame-de-Ham. On the morning of 

 the 17th of September 1772, the lightning injured four different buildings 

 at Padua. A memoir of Henley, which is dated December 1773, informs 

 us that the same day, nay, that nearly at the same moment, the light- 

 ning over London struck the steeple of St. Michael's, the obelisk in St. 

 George's Fields, the New Bridewell, a house in Lambeth, another house 

 near Vauxhall, and a great number of other places very distant from 

 each other, not omitting a Dutch vessel which was lying at anchor 

 near the Tower. 



A learned German found in the year 1783, that within the space of 

 thirty-three years, lightning had struck 386 steeples, and had killed 121 

 ringers* — the number of the wounded being of course much more 

 considerable. In December 1806, during a single storm, the lightning 

 destroyed, in whole or in part, the steeples of St. Martin at Vitre, of 

 Erbre, of Croiselles, and of Etrelles. On the 11th of July 1807, the 



* These numbers will not astonish any one, if I mention that, on the 11th of June 1775, 

 lightning fell upon the steeple of the village of Aubigny, and killed at the same instant 

 three men, who were ringing the bells, and four children who had taken refuge under the tower 

 of the same steeple. , 



