Thus, on April 13, 1863, a telegraph clerk was engaged with several other employees repairing some telegraph wires in the station at Pontarlier, when all at once they felt, at the knee-joints more particularly, a violent shock which made them bend their legs as if they had been struck with a stick; one of them was even thrown down. No doubt the fluid reached the wires, which in those remote parts was in charge of the clerks. On September 8, 1848, during a violent thunderstorm, two telegraph poles were thrown down at Zara in Dalmatia. Two hours later, as they were being set up again, a couple of artillerymen, having seized the wire, felt slight electric shocks, then suddenly found themselves flat on the ground. Both had their hands burnt; one indeed, gave no sign of life; the other, in trying to raise himself up, fell back as soon as his arm came in contact with that of one of his comrades, who ran to his assistance on hearing him cry for help. The latter thrown down in turn, felt his nerves tingle, and giddiness seize him, with singing in his ears. When his arm was uncovered, there was a superficial burn just on the spot where he had been touched. On May 9, 1867, lightning fell on the road from Bastogne to Houffalize (Luxembourg), attracted by the telegraph wire, which it destroyed for about a kilometre. At a certain part, and over a length of about twenty metres, the wire was cut in small pieces, three or four centimetres long, which were scattered over the ground, and were as black and as fragile as charcoal. The poles which supported them, and several poplars planted on the same side of the road, were more or less damaged. It has been observed that trees planted on the same side as a telegraph line were sometimes blasted on a level with the wires. It is the same with houses near the copper threads along which human thoughts take wing. Thus, at Chateauneuf-Martignes, on August 25, 1900, lightning destroyed the telegraph poles on the outskirts of the railway-station. A severe shock, like an electrical discharge, was felt at the same moment by two people who were in bed, not far from where the wire was fixed in the wall of the house, which was a very low one. The same phenomenon had been felt there already. In the railway-stations, as well as in the telegraph and telephone offices, curious results of the spark passing at a certain distance, or even in the immediate neighbourhood, are sometimes observed.