Page:McCosh, John - Advice to Officers in India (1856).djvu/204

 the thunderbolt, as they called it,but none could be found.

One afternoon, at Goalparah Assam, while watching the progress of a storm, a tremendous thunderclap occurred as if the electric discharge had taken place at my feet, and I felt as if enveloped with lightning. Immediately after I heard that the house of a native, about 150 yards from where I stood, had been struck. On going thither I found that the lightning had penetrated the thatch, descended along a post in the wall,and on reaching the floor, had separated into two parts, diverging in opposite directions. The mud walls were torn to pieces, every thing in the house was turned upside down,about a dozen yards of earth were ploughed up to a depth of three or four feet, large stones were splintered, and the fragments tossed several yards apart. The hole in the thatch presented the appearance as if an eighteen pound shot had passed through it, but with no trace of combustion. The man was in the house, a mere hut, of one apartment, when it was struck;and further than being bespattered with mud, and pretty well frightened, received no harm whatever.

All houses, to be safe against lightning, should have conductors. These are very general in Clacutta, but in the thatched bungalows in the interior