adhering loosely, in sizes from pins' heads to
very large eggs, is called hailstones; when
adhering solidly and becoming slippery, it is ice.
Now, it is surely a notable thing that furnace
heat, and ice cold, should both figure together in
electrical storms. Brave observers in balloons
can rise from the sweltering heat of a July
afternoon in a warm summer, into a snow-storm,
in a brief time; but in this June storm, showing
how high the aerial stir had mounted, there was
a meeting of fire and ice.

The rain and hail of electrical storms is said
to be sometimes luminous. "I have twice
observed," said Bergman, writing to the Royal
Society in 1761, "rain fall of such a character
that everything sparkles at its contact, and the
ground seems to be covered by waves of fire."
In 1773 thunder and lightning were
accompanied with rain, every drop of which darted
fire on reaching the earth. M. Pasumot, after
being in the rain of a thunder-storm at La
Cauche, on shaking the rain from the rim of his
hat, observed that on meeting the rain falling
from the clouds the collision struck out sparks
of fire. The Abbé Bertholin, riding from
Brignai to Lyons, saw the rain and hail flash
light on striking the metal of his saddle. On
the 25th of January, 1822, some miners at
Freyberg told Lampadius that they had seen
small hail falling during a thunder-storm which
was luminous on the ground.

But the terror of these storms lies in the fact
that the greatest heat there is, flies about in
them with the greatest known swiftness. A
case, the particulars of which I investigated at
Seaford, illustrates this fact.

On the 13th of December, 1856, two young
men, named Green and Parks, sought shelter
from a thunder-storm in Ade's Mill, Seaford.
They went into the uppermost part of the mill
with the miller, whose name was Hilton. A
little after mid-day the lightning entered one
of the small windows in the uppermost part
of the mill, and prostrated all three. For
some time they were all lying insensible.
Hilton, least hurt, came to himself first, and,
after arousing the others, crawled down to
the door in search of assistance. The first
person he saw was a shepherd of the name of
Picknell, walking towards Seaford, and to him
he called for help. On seeing their condition,
Picknell exclaimed, "Why, you have all been
struck by lightning!" Green was so far from
being aware of what had happened to him, that
as he recovered consciousness he began wondering
"if there could have been anything in a
glass of beer he had drunk, which could have
affected him in this way." They all entreated
Picknell to rub their legs; when he did so, their
black charred flesh came off in his hands.
Procuring a cart, shepherd Picknell carried the poor
sufferers, one by one, in his lap, slipping down
the steep steps inside and outside the mill.
Parks, having suffered in no vital part, eventually
recovered, and is now alive. After apparently
recovering from his dreadful burns, Hilton died
three years afterwards. The fate of Green was
remarkable. He recovered from all his burns,
except one behind his neck. He was fearfully
burned to the bone on his right leg, and on his
foot and round his ankle, as the remains of his
blue cotton stocking still show. He was burned
black, all over his breast. The iron in his heavy
shoes had probably something to do with this
intense burning of his foot and leg; and
perhaps the burn upon his breast, and the fatal
wound behind his neck, owed their severity to
the metals composing his watch and chain. The
silver case of his watch was melted by the
lightning for a length along the edge of more
than half an inch, where it holds the glass; and
the melted silver had run into the form of a
small round globule. The links of his watch-
chain, composed of silvered copper, were
volatilised at two places. One of these places, no
doubt, was where the chain passed over his neck.
He seemed to get quite well, all his wounds
having healed, except the one about the size of
a half-crown piece in the back of his neck. On
the fourth of March, nearly three months after
the storm, he was standing on the beach
chatting with some girls, when one of them asked,
"Are you cross, Robert?" and he answered,
"Do I look cross?" Immediately after, he
clutched hold of her shoulder to support
himself, and the next instant fell down dead. That
little wound behind his neck was above what
Flourens calls the vital knot or brain of
respiration. The inference of the danger of having
metal chains round the neck during thunder-
storms, is too obvious to require mentioning.
The coroner's jury, in accordance with the
medical evidence, said that young Robert Green
died of disease of the heart—a phrase very
serviceable to general practitioners. But the
physiologist will find proofs enough that he
died from gangrene having attacked the small
spot of grey matter, little bigger than a pin's
head, located between the third and fourth
vertebræ, and on which depends the breath of
life.

The line of danger, whether from the burning
or the lifting power of lightning, is the line of
strong and obstructed currents of air. A few
years ago, a man was killed by lightning at
Bishopton Mill, and the spot is precisely where
four paths meet, running between eight high
walls. The line of the lightning is the line of
the greatest aërial friction. Windmills are built
to catch the wind, and with it they catch the
lightning. When Ade's Mill was struck, three
other mills were struck in the same storm—
Seaford Mill, Wyndor Mill, and a mill at
Eastbourne. A joke is ascribed to Washington
Irving. A comrade refused to take shelter
from rain under a tree, because he had promised
his father, who had been struck by lightning
when sheltering under a tree, that he never
would do it. "Oh! if lightning is," retorted
Irving, "in your family, you are quite right."
But lightning is in the family of trees. They
conspicuously obstruct the aërial currents, and
hence their exposure to danger. Lightning is,
for the same reason, an heirloom of church