136 Electrical Countries, and their Action on the Weather. 



tliree times rapidly, sparks of some centimetres in length are 

 obtained, and give noticeable pricks. A metallic object, snch as 

 a door-handle, shoots a spark at the hand which approaches it ; 

 and sometimes these discharges frighten the children. Occa- 

 sionally a gas jet may be lit with a finger after walking on 

 the insulating carpet. 



These phenomena are so common in New York that they 

 excite no surprise ; but they attracted the attention of Yolney 

 at the close of the last century. This celebrated traveller ob- 

 served that the quantity of electricity present in the air con- 

 stitutes an especial difference between America and Europe. 

 " The storms, also," he said, cc furnish frightful proofs of this, 

 by the violence of the thunder, and the prodigious intensity 

 of the lightning." At Philadelphia, the sky seemed on fire 

 from their rapid succession ; and their zigzags and darts were 

 of a magnitude of which he had no idea. 



The extreme dryness of all the plateaux of the Andes 

 occasion similar effects ; and, according to M. Philippi, in the 

 desert of Atacama, men's hair is often made to stand on end, 

 and luminous manifestations spring from the ground. 



According to Dr. Livingstone, in spring, which is the 

 season of greatest dryness, the deserts of South Africa are 

 often traversed by a hot north wind, so electrical, that the 

 feathers of the ostrich become excited to active movements ; 

 and the slightest friction of clothing gives rise to luminous 

 jets. And, as Yolney noticed in America, the heat of the 

 tropical season is not essential to this abundance of electricity, 

 as it is never so striking as when a cool wind blows from the 

 north-west ; and the observations of Gmelin, Pallas, Muller, 

 and Greorgi, show that it is not less excessive in the glacial 

 atmosphere of Siberia. 



In India, electric disturbances in the atmosphere occasion 

 remarkable difficulties in working telegraphic lines. The ap- 

 paratus seems delirious, and works backwards and forwards. 

 Storms of dreadful violence tear up the posts, and threaten to 

 melt the wires ; so that, as a narrator observes, we need not 

 be surprised that Indian telegrams are often as puzzling as the 

 cuneiform inscriptions on Babylonian bricks. 



It would be easy to multiply further evidence of the same 

 kind ; but this may suffice to show that in the east, the south, 

 and the west, electrical actions influence meteorology, and we> 

 may be permitted to believe that their influence may be 

 brought to us by the winds. 



