LIGHTNING 
229 
As to the inverse operation, which is also now known to be 
possible, Miller’s account is not sufficiently full for us to judge 
whether shoots were thrown up from the roots, or whether 
actual transformation of roots occurred. 
A farther very interesting experiment is added, in which a 
pear-tree was inarched upon two pear-stocks, but having its 
roots out of the ground, which “ was in a good flourishing state 
with a branch in blossom, that received no nourishment but by 
the juices that return down the other two branches, which, 
though it had been done two years, yet it continued shooting 
suckers out of the root, which is esteemed as a proof that the 
branches are as useful to support the roots as the roots the 
branches.” 
All these foregoing experiments are quoted as proofs of the 
circulation of the sap, and Miller then proceeds to summarise 
Hales’ arguments against “ the notion of the circulation of the 
sap in trees like to that in animal bodies; ” but, since all these 
are contained in so well-known a work as Hales’ “Vegetable 
Statics,” it is unnecessary to trespass upon the Editor’s space 
by recounting them, my object being simply to give my readers 
some account of the views upon the sap of plants advanced by 
an author who appears to have been overlooked so far as his 
physiological work is concerned : and I can only hope that my 
readers may And this summary as interesting as 1 found the 
original. F. H. Perry-Coste. 
LIGHTNING. 
jS probably many readers of Nature Notes have never 
seen a tree struck by lightning, a note on this subject 
may be useful. If one were to judge by what is seen 
in pictures, it would appear that the tree is struck in a 
slanting direction about one-third of the way down, the head 
breaks oft and crashes to the ground. This, however, is not 
what I have seen in nature. About thirty years ago, when stay- 
ing at my father’s country house in Somersetshire, one morning 
whilst I was dressing I paused to look at a violent thunderstorm 
that was raging, and whilst doing so I saw a flash of lightning 
strike straight down on a large elm tree that stood by itself in a 
grass field about 250 yards in front of me. Directly after break- 
fast 1 walked straight up to the tree to see what damage had 
been done ; the tree stood erect in the apparent enjoyment of 
the fulness of life, but there was from the top to the bottom of 
the tree a deep rent through the bark, as if it had been cut with 
a large jagged knife ; at the foot of the tree the electric fluid had 
separated into some four or five branches furrowing the ground 
for a few feet. I watched this tree in after years, and found it 
gradually wasting away, and it was, I think, cut down in my 
lather’s time ; if not, I shall see it when next that way, and will 
report its condition in these columns. 
