[ 55i ] 
which made us call to mind a very lingular phten©^ 
menon, which happen’d fome years ago to five pea- 
fants, who palTed thro’ a corn-field, near Francfort 
upon the Oder, in a ftorm. The thunder kill’d the 
firfd, the third, and the fifth, without injuring the 
fecond and fourth. 
6. The ftorm of the firft of Auguft was very con- 
ftderable, with very great rain ; every minute we re- 
marked 3 or more flafhes of lightning ; in the mean 
time fome electrical fparks were obferv’d upon the: 
wire. They put upon a chain, which communicated 
with the wire, a thread, the two ends of which hung 
down 3 which fhew’d electricity, by mutually repel- 
ling each other ; for, at every fla-fh of lightning, they 
approached other fuddenly, as if they had been pufh’d. 
one againft the other by fome force. 
7. Sometimes the eleCtricity continued in the wire 
with great ftrength to minutes, after the thunder 
and lightning had intirely ceafed, &c. 
Conformable to the 6 obfervation of Mr. Ludolf, I 
have often obferved, that, in prefenting dull: or dry’d 
fnuff to the end of a tin cylinder, which hung to 
the wire in thefe fort of experiments, this duft 
was ftrongly attracted, as foon as the wire fhew’d 
any figns of eleCtricity. But, when the eleCtrical 
matter came to be accumulated in this cylinder, 
the duft was powerfully repell’d as by a ftrong blaft, 
infomuch tliat the quantity of molecules repell’d was 
much greater than of thofe attracted at the fame 
time. 
And with refpeCt to- this fucceftive attraction and 
repulfion, I muft not pafs by in filenee an experiment 
I was 
