140 F. H. QUAIFE. 



is to explain why the ventilator on the roof itself was not 

 struck when there was so much metal surface leading to 

 or standing on some fifteen feet of wet soil, rather than a 

 tube close to the guttering and the eve of the well conduct- 

 ing roof ; no doubt the gas pipe carried off a part of the 

 discharge, and no doubt also the enormous potential and 

 current spread itself over most of the metal parts. 



On the 25th of February last (1912), there occurred a 

 storm of terrific severity. It was Sunday when in the 

 afternoon large numbers of people take their outing in the 

 beautiful Centennial Park. Again the central disturbance 

 was over part of the Eastern suburbs. The morning was 

 close and muggy, and from noon onwards large stormy 

 masses of cloud appeared rising in the south-west. With 

 a friend, about 4*15 p.m., I went out for a walk, and, as we 

 usually did, made our way to the kiosk for some tea ; a 

 storm was clearly advancing rapidly, and a high bank of 

 curiously whitish cloudy curtain preceded the dark leaden 

 masses. We had only sat a very short time when the faint 

 rumbles began, and it grew excessively dark. Frequent 

 flashes occurred, and increased in severity with tremendous 

 thunder, and the rain at first light, soon became denser, 

 and fell in torrents, so thick that we could not see more 

 than a few yards into it. The flashes got so frequent that 

 for a few minutes at the height of the storm, there seemed 

 only from 10 to 20 seconds between them. They culminated 

 in two extraordinary ones, with more of the crackling kind 

 of thunder, and certainly not more than two seconds 

 between flash and crash. This would give about 2,200 feet 

 distance from the kiosk. These occurred about 5*30 p.m. 

 Soon after this the clearing followed and we were able to 

 go home. 



About seven o'clock I was going across to St. Matthias' 

 Church in the dusk, when two ladies told me that the 



