Ill 
ELECTRIC PHENOMENA 
63 
latter case is remarkable, as the electric fluid must have turned 
back at the acute angle of 26°, to the line of its main course. 
Besides the four tubes which I found vertical, and traced be¬ 
neath the surface, there were several other groups of fragments, 
the original sites of which without doubt were near. All 
occurred in a level area of shifting sand, sixty yards by twenty, 
situated among some high sand-hillocks, and at the distance of 
about half a mile from a chain of hills four or five hundred feet 
in height. The most remarkable circumstance, as it appears to 
me, in this case as well as in that of Drigg, and in one described 
by M. Ribbentrop in Germany, is the number of tubes found 
within such limited spaces. At Drigg, within an area of fifteen 
yards, three were observed, and the same number occurred in 
Germany. In the case which I have described, certainly more 
than four existed within the space of the sixty by twenty yards. 
As it does not appear probable that the tubes are produced by 
successive distinct shocks, we must believe that the lightning, 
shortly before entering the ground, divides itself into separate 
branches. 
The neighbourhood of the Rio Plata seems peculiarly sub¬ 
ject to electric phenomena. In the year 1793, 1 one of the 
most destructive thunderstorms perhaps on record happened at 
Buenos Ayres : thirty-seven places within the city were struck 
by lightning, and nineteen people killed. From facts stated in 
several books of travels, I am inclined to suspect that thunder¬ 
storms are very common near the mouths of great rivers. Is it 
not possible that the mixture of large bodies of fresh and salt 
water may disturb the electrical equilibrium ? Even during our 
occasional visits to this part of South America, we heard of a 
ship, two churches, and a house having been struck. Both the 
church and the house I saw shortly afterwards : the house 
belonged to Mr. Hood, the consul-general at Monte Video. Some 
of the effects were curious : the paper, for nearly a foot on each 
side of the line where the bell-wires had run, was blackened. 
The metal had been fused, and although the room was about 
fifteen feet high, the globules, dropping on the chairs and furni¬ 
ture, had drilled in them a chain of minute holes. A part of 
the wall was shattered as if by gunpowder, and the fragments 
had been blown off with force sufficient to dent the wall on the 
1 Azara’s Voyage , vol. i. p. 36. 
