I find the following note amongst my papers: "M. Coulvier-Gravier, director of the meteoric observatory of the palace of Luxembourg, told me yesterday that on Sunday, April 8, at 9.35 in the evening, a watch (wound up), which had stopped a week previously, went on at the moment lightning struck the lightning conductor on the Luxembourg above these rooms." Often enough the case is badly injured: the polish is rubbed off the metal, it is melted, bored through, and even dented, without any trace of fusion. A case of the latter is rare. Here is an example, however. In the month of June, 1853, a man from Aigremont having been killed by lightning, his silver watch was found in his watch-pocket completely smashed. Indeed, one of the most common effects of lightning on watches is the magnetization to which the various pieces of steel are subjected. We have a considerable number of records concerning these magnetic properties. In one case the balance had its poles so well pointed that, when placed on a raft, it served as a compass. We may observe, by the way, that clocks and chronometers are sometimes as much injured also by the spark. It often gives an energetic twist to the needles, or to the spring for regulating the strokes, or it even melts the wheel-works, either partially or completely. It is difficult to form any idea of the various operations of lightning; here it hurls itself down like a fiery torrent, there it makes itself so tiny that it can pass through the smallest apertures. Does it not even slip under women's corsets, melting the busks and the little knobs which serve to hook them. It even attacks the various metal articles which set off our garments, even to the shoe-buckles, buttons, etc. Keys are, as a rule, very ill-treated by the fire of heaven: they are twisted, flattened, melted or soldered to the ring from which they hang. On May 12, 1890, a man living at Troyes returned to his house while a violent storm was raging. The moment he put his key into the lock, the white gleam of a dazzling flash of lightning surrounded him, the ring holding his keys was broken in his hand, and they were scattered on the threshold. At times, too, scissors, needles, etc., are snatched out of the hands of the workers, and carried some distance off when they are not reduced to vapour. At Saint-Dizier (Haute-Marne) in July, 1886, lightning fell on the workshop of M. Penon, a chain-maker. Five or six workmen were finishing their work or getting ready to leave.