Mr Charles Tomlinson.on Lightning Figures. 259 
Lightning.” Among these effects are the impressions above 
referred to, of objects left on the bodies of persons struck by 
lightning, or standing near to objects that have been struck. 
Thus, it is stated that Franklin was often heard to speak of 
the case of a man who, standing opposite a tree that was so 
struck, had on his breast “an exact representation of that 
tree.” Ihave not been able to find any reference to this case in 
Franklin’s works, which I think somewhat singular; but I do 
not wish to push that negative fact beyond the limits of a 
remark. Other cases quoted by M. Poey are.as follows :— 
' In .August 1853, a little girl was standing at a window, 
before which was a young maple tree, “a complete image of 
which” was found impressed on her body after a a of 
lightning. 
A boy climbed a tree to steal a bird’s nest; the tree was 
struck by lightning, and the boy thrown to the ground: “ on 
his breast the image of the tree,’with the bird and nest on 
one of its branches, appeared very plainly.” Here, again, it 
may be remarked, that when boys ascend trees to steal birds’ 
nests, the poor little fluttering parent does not, in this country 
at least, stop to have its photographic portrait taken. 
Another case is that of an Italian lady of Lugano, who, 
sitting at the window during a thunder-storm, had the por- 
trait of a flower permanently impressed upon her leg. 
In preparing a new edition of my little book, “The Thunder 
Storm,” I included these and similar cases in a note in the 
appendix “ On Electric Images.” Among these are the 
Breath-figures (the Electrische Hauch-figuren of the Ger- 
mans, and the Figures roriques of the French), or those 
figures resembling Moser’s, but produced by Riess, Karsten, 
and others by means of electricity. For example, a coin is 
placed on glass, and a stream of sparks from an ordinary 
electrical machine is poured upon it. About 80 or 100 turns 
of a two-foot plate machine may be required. On throwing 
off the coin, and breathing on the glass, the image and super- 
scription of the coin are, under favourable circumstances, 
perfectly reproduced, by the mode in which the breath con- 
denses on the glass. I say under favourable circumstances, 
because it is necessary that a film of matter such as covers 
most objects exposed to the air or to contact with the hands 
