Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 2.djvu/494

478 at mid-day. While the sun was shining, the lightning fired the electric gun at Newcastle three minutes before its time, casting a slur on the chronometer of the best ship lying in the river; and then, like a pall, the clouds descended and literally walked through the town. There was no looking up at the lightning; it was on a level with the eye. The streets were a deluge, and old people and children and furniture were burled along in the torrent. At the height of the storm, twenty-one flashes were counted in a minute, and the thunder rolled without intermission, only enlivened by a loud discharge as from a sixty-four pounder. Wherever there was a window open, the lightning ran in and out in mad revel. Houses were struck in every direction, and windows of whole streets were smashed, though no one knew whether by the hail or the thunder. Families assembled for prayer, believing they had arrived at the final consummation; and all who witnessed this storm whether the population, scared out of their wits for many a day, or the fifteen people who were struck by the lightning, or the five who were killed by it (if they could have returned to give their testimony)—would have decided the question at the head of this paper, and said, "Electricity is death."

And yet "electricity is life." It is the very soul of the universe. It permeates all space, surrounds the earth, and is found in every part of it. Its pristine character is by no means what we have above described. It is naturally the most peaceful agent in creation. It is eminently social, and nestles round the form it inhabits. Unlike many human specimens, it never desires to keep all its good to itself, but is ever ready to diffuse its beneficence. It is only in abnormal conditions, and in unexpected rencontres, that it displays itself in that brilliant flash and that deafening roar with which its majestic force yields up its great spirit.

The ocean, for instance, is compounded of water and salt; one is an electric, the other not. The friction of these causes the phosphorescent appearance so often observed at sea. But, when clouds arise from the ocean and come inland, they are mostly highly charged with electricity, and, being naturally anxious to give up the good things they possess, when they meet clouds not so much electrified, they hand over their surplus commodity, and the deliverance makes the earth and all created things in the neighborhood tremble. Or, if clouds arise from fresh waters, or from land not having much electric fire, the sun himself warms them up in a friendly manner; and, as they become charged with the vital fluid, and, in a drunken sort of way, stumble against the sides of mountains or against other clouds, the same benignant tendency to part with what they have too much of induces them to give up their vital force, and the fire flashes across the sky, and all creation bows before the artillery of the heavens. And then they weep together over the kindly exchange, though their tears do sometimes swell the rivers and produce a number of catastrophes not originally in the