Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/221

Rh The ball, which was about as big as an orange, moved slowly along the wires to the central station and struck the dynamo, which was running. Before the eyes of the terrified workmen it sprang twice from the dynamo to the wires and back. Then it fell from the machine and burst into a shower of sparks without doing any damage. The electric lamps flickered during its visit, and the thick copper plates of the switch were melted and welded in places.

Of especial interest is the appearance of a large number of balls during a tornado on August 18, 1890, in the French Departement Ille et Vilaine. A farmer of Vizy, who was caught by the storm in the field, saw a fireball fall with great velocity. Panic-stricken, he threw himself on the ground. The luminous ball struck the earth, burst with a loud noise, and covered him with dust.

Dwellers in Vers l'Eau and Samiset saw balls as large as a man's head and of a vivid red, which moved slowly toward some barns, where they vanished after setting the haystacks on fire. In Saint-Claude a great number of balls entered dwellings by the chimneys. They moved slowly to and fro and escaped through windows, doors, and walls, after doing more or less damage. The air in the houses was impregnated with the smell of sulphur or gunpowder.

The region of the Hochgebirge is especially favorable for the observation of globe lightning.

Alluard, the director of the observatory on the Puy-de-Dôme, reports that frequently during thunderstorms showers of small balls of fire are seen falling. On the peak Saentis, in the same region, where a meteorological station was founded at an elevation of twenty-five hundred and four metres in 1882, some very remarkable phenomena were observed by a minister named Studer on June 28, 1885. He and a companion were caught out in the storm after nightfall. All at once they saw on the ridge extending from Saentis to the neighboring peak of Altmann flaring flames and small yellow balls of light. The latter ran along as if on a wire, approached each other, then exploded and fell down. A single larger ball of fire hovered over the same ridge, moving to and fro in a flat parabola with about the speed of a ball thrown by the hand, except that its velocity was uniform. It was visible for several minutes. Then there was a frightful explosion, which seemed to shake the whole mountain to its foundations, and a display of natural fireworks, "of a magnificence never before witnessed," amazed the spectators.

The telephone wire from the station to the valley glowed with great brilliancy as far as it could be seen, and waving sheets of fire extended from it to the ground. Suddenly the whole fiery