Electricity seems to kill by destroying nervous power. Cardanus tells of eight reapers being killed while taking their meal under an oak. When the witnesses of the occurrence ran to the spot, they saw a strange sight. The victims “seemed to be still busy with their frugal repast. One of them held his glass, another was putting some bread into his mouth, a third had his hand in the dish. The angel of death had struck them so violently that the whole surface of their bodies bore the marks of his black wings. They seemed so many statues sculptured in black marble.” “In another case where ten reapers were killed under a hedge, one of them had a dog on his knee at the time when he was struck. The unfortunate man was caressing with one hand his little companion, and with the other giving him a piece of bread. Both master and dog were merely inert masses of rigid muscle and stiffened sinew, and yet the bread was still held by the lifeless hand. The dog, with his mouth expressively open, seemed still to beg for the proffered morsel.” A peasant woman in the suburbs of Nancy was struck while gathering flowers. She was found standing, holding in her hand the daisy she had been plucking. A French soldier took refuge under a tree during a storm; a peasant sheltered himself in a copse near by. The soldier was killed by lightning. The storm over, the peasant crept out and called to the soldier to come on. Receiving no answer, he [Illustration: HARVESTERS KILLED BY LIGHTNING.] went up and touched the erect, motionless figure. It at once melted away. Only a little dust remained. A similar result occurred not long since in a powerful electric light plant. A large rat endeavored to cross some of the machinery, and at once became rigid, as though an image of stone. One of the employes, taking a stick, endeavored to push the carcass off; it at once disappeared in a cloud of impalpable dust. Terrible results have followed from lightning striking into powder magazines. August 18, 1769, the powder vault in the tower of St. Nazaire, at Brescia, was struck. The explosion destroyed one-sixth of the city completely, and damaged all buildings more or less. Three thousand persons were killed, while the property ruined amounted to over $3,000,000. June 26, 1807, the lightning struck a magazine in the fortress of the Luxembourg, ruining the lower town, and killing or wounding two hundred and thirty people. In 1856 the powder vaults in the church of St. John, in the island of Rhodes were struck. More than two hundred people were instantly killed.