Curious Effects of Lightning on Fir-Trees 23 



CURIOUS EFFECTS OF LIGHTNING ON 

 FIR-TREES. 



In Lord Derby's " Inval wood" on the top of Hurt Hill 

 there are at present some exceedingly interesting objects. 

 The trees are Scotch firs which have been spindled up to 

 great height by close planting. They stand like so many 

 giant cedar pencils, all much alike, and all with leaf-bearing 

 branches at their top. They are, perhaps, sixty years old, 

 and some are, perhaps, 80 feet high. Most of them are, appa- 

 rently, in good health. Those to which it is desired to attract 

 attention stand on the very crest of the hill, and this crest is 

 about 800 feet above sea-level. Some ten or twelve years ago 

 the wind made great havoc in this wood on its south aspect, 

 with the result of leaving the trees which now concern us 

 somewhat exposed and the loftiest objects in the neighbour- 

 hood. The trees chiefly implicated are three in number, but 

 I might add two others which show somewhat similar con- 

 ditions but much less well marked. 



No. 1 of these three trees has a series of slits in its bark 

 which all run lengthwise, and at the bottom of which dead 

 wood is exposed. The bark at the borders of these is lifted 

 into thick ridges by the undergrowth of the wood, so the 

 fissures are 2 inches deep. The surface of bare and dead 

 wood at the bottom is not large. The series of slits extends 

 from near the ground upwards for about 20 feet. 



No. 2 shows a condition which has, perhaps, never been 

 noted before, an almost spirally fluted bole. Beginning about 

 12 feet from the ground strongly marked flutings, 2 inches in 

 elevation, curve up its trunk to a height of 50 feet. They 

 look like the ridges so often seen as the result of a climbing 

 woodbine, but they go up far too high, and, what is more 

 conclusive, the spiral is broken and at places is double, 

 whilst only in one place does it completely surround the 

 trunk. The curves are so much lengthened that for the 

 most part the ridges appear to run almost vertically. The 



