On May 17, 1852, towards five o'clock, the sky looking overcast, the station-master at Havre warned his colleague at Beuzeville that it would be well to put his apparatus in connection with the ground. Beuzeville is twenty-five kilometres away from Havre, and at the former station the weather then did not look at all threatening. But clouds soon piled up, driven before a violent wind. Suddenly three awful peals of thunder succeeded each other in quick succession. With the last, lightning struck a farm about a kilometre from the station, and at the same moment a globe of fire of a reddish brown, and apparently about the size of a small bomb-shell, rose as if out of a clump of trees. It glided through the air like an aerolite, and leaving behind it a train of light. At a hundred metres or so from the station, it alighted like a bird on the telegraph wires, then disappeared with the rapidity of lightning, leaving no trace of its passage, either on the wires or the station. But at Beuzeville several interesting phenomena were observed. Firstly, the needles turned rapidly, with a grating noise like that of a turnspit suddenly running down, or like a grindstone sharpening iron, which emits sparks. A great number, indeed, flew out of the apparatus. One of the needles, that on the Rouen side, went out of order; all the screws on that part of the instrument were unscrewed, and on the copper dial near the axis of the needle, there was a hole through which one could pass a grain of corn. The instruments at Havre were unaffected. The needle remained as usual, also the dial, screws, and so on. One of our correspondents has sent me the following very interesting communication:-- "On June 26, 1901, having rung up at the central telephone-office at St. Pierre, Martinique, a harsh noise was heard, which was almost immediately succeeded by the appearance of a ball of fire, having an apparent diameter of twenty centimetres, and the brilliancy of an electric light of twenty candle power. This voluminous globe followed the telephone wire towards the instrument. Arrived near the receiver, it burst with a terrific explosion. The witness of this phenomenon felt a severe shock, and dizziness. Recovered from his stupefaction, he noted the following facts: the telephone apparatus was completely burnt, the relay of Morse's installation was slightly damaged. The electrical tension must have been enormous, for the wire of the bobbins was, to a great extent, melted." This latter effect, however, occurs very frequently. Not only does the lightning melt and break the telegraph wires, but it injures the poles which support them.