Quite recently, on May 24, 1904, at Charolles (Saône-et-Loire), a certain Mlle. Moreau, who lived at Lesmes, was waiting for the end of a storm in a grocer's shop where she had been making some purchases. Several people were gathered round the fireplace. They felt a great movement following a violent clap of thunder. The sensation having passed, every one prepared to go. Mlle. Moreau alone remained seated, and did not move. She had been struck by the fluid, which had made a hole under her right ear and come out by the left! The petrifying action of the electric fluid is so rapid that horsemen who have been struck have remained on horseback and been carried a long way from the place of the accident without being unsaddled. According to Abbé Richard, towards the end of the eighteenth century, the procurator of the Seminary of Troyes was coming home on horseback when he was struck by lightning. A brother who followed him, not perceiving this, thought that he was asleep when he saw him reeling. When he tried to awaken him, he found he was dead. The following observation is very remarkable on account of the special attitudes preserved by the bodies which had been struck:-- A vessel which was at Port Mahon was struck at the time when the crew were dispersed over the yards to furl the sails. Fifteen sailors who were scattered on the bowsprit were killed or burned in the twinkling of an eye. Some were thrown into the water; others, bent dead across the yard-arm, remained in the position they had occupied before the accident. Often the corpses of people who have been struck have been found either sitting or standing. At the approach of a storm a vine-dresser was seated under a nut tree which was planted near a hedge: soon afterwards, when it had ceased raining and the thunder was quiet, his two sisters, who had been taking shelter under the hedge, saw him sitting, and called to him to go back to work, but he did not reply; on going up to him, they found him dead. In 1853, in the neighbourhood of Asti, a priest who was struck while dining remained in his place. In 1698, a ship was struck at about four o'clock in the morning, not far from Saint-Pierre. At daybreak a sailor was found sitting stone dead at the bow of the ship, with his eyes open and the whole body in such a natural attitude that he seemed to be alive. He had suffered no injury either external or internal. Dr. Boudin describes a still more surprising case. A woman was struck while she was in the act of plucking a poppy. The body was found standing, only slightly bent and with the flower still in her hand. It is hard to understand how a human body could remain standing, slightly bent, without a support to prevent its falling. This case is a contradiction to all the laws of equilibrium. But with such a fantastic agent as that with which we are dealing, nothing is surprising--we may expect anything. Thus--