and certain Electrical Phenomena. 483 



first time I noticed this appearance was when a chief was 

 travelling with me in my wagon. Seeing part of the fur of 

 his mantle which was exposed to slight friction by the move- 

 ment of the wagon assume quite a luminous appearance, I 

 rubbed it smartly with the hand, and found it readily give 

 out bright sparks, accompanied with distinct cracks. ' Don't 

 you see this ? ' said I. ' The white man did not show us 

 this/ he replied ; ' we had it long before white men came 

 into the country, we and our forefathers of old/ " 



But it is more to our present purpose to deal with electrical 

 phenomena at or near the earth's surface. Hence I propose 

 to describe some remarkable cases of brush and glow dis- 

 charge, both of which, according to Faraday, consist of a 

 charging of air, " the only difference being that the glow has 

 a continuous appearance from the constant renewal of the 

 same action in the same place, whereas the ramification is 

 due to a momentary independant and intermitting action of 

 the same kind/'* In other words, a continuous discharge to 

 the air gives the glow, an interrupted one produces the brush, 

 and in a more exalted condition the spark. 



The. Geneva correspondent of the i Times/ in a letter to 

 that journal dated June 20th, 1880, and which appeared on 

 the 24th, speaks of a remarkable electrical phenomenon which 

 appeared at Clarens on the afternoon of the previous 

 Thursday. Heavy masses of rain-cloud hid the mountains 

 which separate Friburg from Montreux, but their summits 

 were lit up from time to time by vivid flashes of lightning. 

 A heavy thunderstorm seemed to be raging in the valleys of 

 the Avants and the Alliaz. No rain was falling near the 

 Lake of Geneva, and the storm still appeared to be distant, 

 when a tremendous peal of thunder shook the houses of 

 Clarens and Tavel. At the same instant a cherry-tree near 

 the cemetery, measuring a metre in circumference, was struck 

 by lightning and shivered into matches. Some people who 

 were working in a vineyard hard by saw the electricity play 

 about a little girl who was gathering cherries, and was already 

 thirty paces from the tree. She is described as literally 

 wrapped in a sheet of fire. The vine-dressers fled in terror 

 from the spot. In the cemetery six persons, separated into 

 three groups, none of them within 250 paces of the cherry- 

 tree, were enveloped in a luminous cloud. They said they 

 felt as if they were being struck in the face with hail-stones 

 or fine gravel, and when they touched each other sparks 

 passed from their fingers' ends. At the same time a lumi- 



* Experimental Researches in Electricity (1543). 



