Thunder and Lightning — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Thunder and Lightning
John Stuart Mill · en
On August 24, 1895, about ten in the morning, in the midst of a storm
of wind and rain, several persons saw descending to the ground a
whitish-coloured globe of about an inch and a half in diameter, which,
on touching the ground, split into two smaller globes. These rose at
once to the height of the chimneys on the houses close by and
disappeared. One went down a chimney, crossed a room in which were a
man and a child, without harming them, and went through the floor,
perforating a brick with a clean round hole of about the size of a
franc. Under this room there was a sheepfold. The shepherd's son,
seated at the doorway, suddenly saw a bright light shining over the
flock of sheep, while the lambs were jumping about in alarm. When he
went up to them, he was startled to discover that five sheep had been
killed. They bore no trace of burning, or of wound of any kind, but
about their lips was a sort of foam, slightly pink in colour.
In the adjoining house, the second fireball had also gone down a
chimney, and had exploded in the kitchen, causing great damage.
In 1890, a young farmer was working on a plot of ground, two or three
miles from Montfort-l'Amaury. A storm breaking out, he stood up
against his horses to take refuge from the rain; moving away a few
yards in order to get his whip, there was seen, when he returned, a
ball of fire almost touching the ear of one of his horses. A moment
later it exploded with a deafening noise. The two horses fell--one of
them unable to get up again. The farmer himself was dashed to pieces.
On other occasions the meteor is hardly more devastating than the
ordinary bomb.
On April 21, at Lanxade, near Bergerac, a storm had been raging
already for some hours, when suddenly--simultaneously with a small
thunderclap--a ball of fire, of the size of the opening of a sack of
corn, fell slowly on one of the banks of the Dordogne, spoiling some
fruit trees, and then crossing the river, it raised a waterspout
several yards high as it went.
It disappeared finally on the other side of a field of corn.
On November 12, 1887, a very curious instance of a fireball was
noticed on the Atlantic.
It was at midnight, near Cape Race. An enormous fireball was seen to
rise slowly out of the sea to the height of sixteen or seventeen
metres. It travelled against the wind, and came quite near the vessel
from which it was being watched. Then it turned towards the south-east
and disappeared. The apparition lasted about five minutes.
In July, 1902, in the course of a violent storm, and immediately after
a loud peal of thunder, a fireball of about the size of a toy balloon
was seen to make its appearance suddenly in the Rue Veron at
Montmartre. After moving along, just above the ground, in front of a
wine-merchant's shop, it exploded like a bomb, most fortunately
without hurting any one, or doing any damage.