Ordinary Meeting, October 21st, 1878. 
Edward Schunck, Ph.D., F.KS., F.C.S., Vice-President, 
in the Chair. 
W. Boyd Dawkins, F.B.S., exhibited a fragment of a post 
struck by lightning on 2nd June, 1878. It formed one of 
three about 8 feet high and 15 feet apart in the garden of 
11, Norma Eoad, Rusholme, and stood under a cherry tree 
of which the stem was 10 feet away. It was completely 
shattered, fragments being driven as far as the walls of the 
house, 25 yards off, and the downward direction of the 
loose splinters implied that the explosive force was exerted 
from below upwards, instead of from above downwards. 
People in the Dickenson Road observed what they termed 
a “thunderbolt” fall, as they thought, on the house, and 
some of the inhabitants describe it as a flame of light fol- 
lowed immediately by a crash of thunder. It is very probable 
that the explosion was produced by an electric current pass- 
ing from the earth upwards, and not vice, versa. 
Professor Reynolds attributed the shattering of the post 
to the explosive or repulsive action of an electrical discharge 
of unusual intensity. 
Mr. Baxendell thought it was most probably due to the 
sudden conversion of a portion of the moisture in the post 
into steam of high tension by the heating action of the 
electrical discharge, and mentioned instances in which con- 
densed vapour was said to have been seen rising from trees 
immediately after they had been struck by lightning. 
“On the Relative Work spent in Friction in giving Rota- 
tion to Shot from Guns rifled with an Increasing, and a 
Uniform Twist,” by Osborne Reynolds, M.A., Professor of 
Engineering, Owens College, Manchester, and Fellow of 
Queens’ College, Cambridge. 
The object of this paper is to show that the friction 
between the studs and the grooves necessary to give rota- 
tion to the shot consumes more work with an increasing 
Pkoceedifgs — Lit. & Phil, Society. — Vol. XIII, — No, 2 — Session 1873-4. 
