Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, March 1900: Vol. 56, Nov. 1899 to April, 1900Various
History
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, March 1900: Vol. 56, Nov. 1899 to April, 1900
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
In the summer of 1898, W. H. Osborne, of Chardon, Ohio, an amateur
photographer of some experience, secured the accompanying photograph
of a lightning flash which seemed to us to show certain peculiarities
that entitle it to a public notice and a permanent record. The picture
shows three flashes, of which the distant and faint one at the right
and the bright one at the left were simultaneous, while the center one
occurred a few seconds earlier. Nothing about the thunder that followed
the last and bright flash suggested that it was specially near, but
an examination of the picture when developed and a comparison with
the features of the landscape showed that it had come to earth about
fifteen rods from the place where Mr. Osborne stood with his camera.
Mr. Osborne and myself carefully searched the locality indicated, but
failed to find even the slightest mark caused by the discharge upon any
object or in the earth.
[Illustration]
Measurements at this place give the width of the ribbon of light, if
it stood at right angles with the line of sight, about eight feet.
This ribbon of light is seen to consist of six lines, approximately
parallel, of unequal brightness, a pair being at each edge and a pair
near the center. The space between these pairs is crossed by many
nearly horizontal lines and a few oblique ones, while that between
the right-hand pair is crossed by oblique lines only. The horizontal
lines at the right of the center become curved downward, which, with
the increased brightness of the whole toward that side, suggests to
us that the ribbon of light did not lie in a plane, but was concave
toward a point at the observer's left. That the ribbon did not stand
at right angles with the line of sight, but was nearer the observer
at the right-hand edge, is also shown by the inequality of the lower
termination of the six vertical lines referred to above. The ones at
the left either rest upon or are hidden behind a rise of ground, whose
crest can be traced for a little distance each side of the flash, while
those at the right come lower, falling between the observer and the
ground at that point. Probably, when measured upon this diagonal and
curved line, the width of the flash was fifteen or twenty feet.
Mention has already been made of the fact that the accompanying thunder
was comparatively light, and not at all like that ordinarily heard when
lightning occurs within so short a distance. Possibly this, as well as
the absence of marks at the point where it reached the earth, might
have been because the discharge was of very low tension.
* * * * *
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