Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/356

342 stationary, as they often are at sea, for otherwise summer rains would not be evenly distributed over the face of the country; and the hind in some places would be subject to exceeding moisture, while in other places it would suffer from the drought.

A few days after the above was written, a violent thunder-gust closed a warm afternoon. It was on the 1st of August, 1873. The day had been hot and peculiarly oppressive, as is usually the case before a violent storm. Between four and six o'clock, a thunder-shower came down the valley of West River, and corresponded in its general features with the description given above; but it exhibited in addition other features which were entirely peculiar. The lightning struck in five notably different places in the village of Brattleboro, which partly borders the valley of West River near where it disembogues into the Connecticut River, and these places, instead of being elevated points, were, in all cases except one, among some of the lower ones. And they were nearly all in the same straight line, about a half or three-fourths of a mile in length, and at a short distance from the Connecticut.

The strokes that fell upon these points followed each other in pretty rapid succession, and were accompanied by thunder that had a sound as if partly suppressed. It was neither loud nor jarring, as thunder sometimes is. The rain fell in floods, and was very copious. Its abundance, rendering the air seemingly nearly half water, doubtless occasioned the subdued sound of the thunder, and perhaps greatly reduced the force of the shocks; for in no case was any considerable damage done. An upper corner of a two-story house was shattered, two other buildings were slightly injured, and several trees were marked by narrow channels down their trunks or branches. Together with the first house struck, one of two fir-trees standing near was grooved at the same time, and some of the splinters were found in the chamber nearest the shattered corner, although the window-blinds were closed and fastened. These splinters must have been driven up between the slats of the blinds, which would seem to show that the stroke was upward instead of downward. A window-curtain near the corner was torn to shreds. In the lower room nearest the corner there were no effects of the shock observed except upon a gilt cornice which was marked at intervals by black perpendicular bars, the gilding there having been burned or melted. The intervals between these bars were in some cases very narrow, and at others very wide. Two persons sitting in this room perceived no effect from the shock.

At one moment during the storm the wind came from the north or northeast. This wind was probably highly charged with electricity, which, being added to the electricity of the northwest current, produced such an excess of the fluid as to result in the rapid and numerous discharges which took place. The most of these discharges apparently occurred along the line where the two currents of air met. The