Littell's Living Age/Volume 130/Issue 1679/Lightning-Prints

From Chambers' Journal.

LIGHTNING-PRINTS.

Very curious results are sometimes produced by lightning, calculated to incite wonderment in the minds of persons unversed in the phenomena of electricity, and to set scientific men thinking and experimenting on the probable causes of these appearances. Of the destruction of ships and houses by lightning we do not speak, nor of the more lamentable cases in which persons have been struck dead by such visitations. The phenomena more immediately in view are lightning figures or pictures, impressions burnt into the surface of the object struck, and presenting resemblances concerning which fancy has been allowed to draw fanciful conclusions.

Marks, remarkably tree-like, have sometimes been found on the bodies of persons struck by lightning. MM. Bossut and Leroy, in 1786, reported to the Académie des Sciences a case of this kind, and accounted for it by supposing that the lightning in its passage through the body had forced the blood into the vessels of the skin, and thus all the ramifications of these vessels were visible on the surface. Arago adopted a similar explanation, in regard to a case which occurred in France much more recently: two persons standing near a poplar-tree were struck by lightning, and on the breast of each were found marks closely resembling the branchlets of the poplar.

More strictly belonging to those instances in which the lightning-marks resemble familiar objects is one that occurred in a Somersetshire village in 1812. One version of the story is, that "six sheep reposing in a meadow surrounded by woods were killed by lightning; and when the skins were taken from the animals, a facsimile of a portion of the surrounding scenery was visible on the inner surface of each skin." The other version is that, about turnip-sowing time, a farmer and his men were engaged in the fields, when a violent storm of thunder and lightning came on, and three out of four valuable rams, which had taken shelter under a tree, were killed; when the skins reached the fellmonger, on the inside of each was found depicted a very accurate representation of the tree under which the animals had sought refuge. Although differing in details, these two accounts probably relate to the same occurrence; the latter is perhaps more credible than the former, seeing that we can more readily believe an impression of a tree than of a landscape being thus produced.

In 1846, at Graham's Town in South Africa, a flash of lightning struck the gable of a powder-mill. The building contained a store of twelve tons of gunpowder, in copper-bound barrels packed in a cluster about four feet from the wall. The lightning ran along the wall of the gable, beneath the floor, and out under the door-sill. The mark of the flash, zigzag in shape, and directed at an angle of about eighty degrees, was plainly visible on the whitewashed wall of the magazine, resembling in color the stain produced by the explosion of a very light train of powder; and a small hole or crack was made in the arch where it entered. There was no tree-mark or mystical mark here; the mark produced was evidently the zigzag path of the lightning itself.

Signor Orioli brought before a scientific congress at Naples four narratives relating to lightning-prints. In the first, lightning struck the foremast of the brigantine "Santo Buon Servo" in the Bay of Arriero; a sailor sitting under the mast was struck dead, and on his back was found an impression of a horseshoe, similar to one fixed at the masthead. In the second, a sailor, in a somewhat similar position, was struck by a lightning-flash on the left breast with an impression of the number 44; an almost exact representative of a number 44 that was at the extremity of one of the masts. In the third, a young man was found struck by lightning; he had on a girdle with some gold coins in it; and images of these were imprinted on his skin in the order they occupied in the girdle. In the fourth, an Italian lady of Lugano was sitting near a window during a thunderstorm, and was struck, though in a way scarcely conscious to herself at the time; a flower which happened to be in the path of the lightning was perfectly reproduced or printed on her leg, where it remained permanently.

Among the thunderstorms described as having occurred in the West Indies, one, in 1852, was rendered remarkable by this phenomenon: a poplar-tree in a coffee-plantation was struck by lightning, and on one of the large dry leaves was found imprinted an exact representation of some pine-trees that stood three or four hundred yards distant. Whether this was really an "exact representation," or the product of an excited imagination not well controlled by accurate judgment, is just the point which we cannot determine; the markings on the leaf may have been only the natural zigzagging of the lightning.

In 1853, a little girl was standing at a window, near which stood a young maple-tree; a flash of lightning struck either the girl or the tree, or both, and an image of the tree was found imprinted on her body. In another instance, a boy climbed a tree to steal a bird's nest; a lightning-flash struck the tree; the boy fell to the ground, and "on his breast the image of a tree, with the bird and nest on one of its branches, appeared very conspicuously." Scientific journals, as well as those of more popular character, contain a rich store of incidents more or less similar to the above. Dr. Franklin stated in 1786, that, about twenty years previously, a man who was standing opposite a tree that had just been struck by lightning (or as he called it, by a thunderbolt), found on his breast an exact representation of that tree. M. Poey, who has treated this subject somewhat fully in the French scientific journals, mentions twenty-four cases of lightning-impressions on the bodies of men and animals. Of those, eight were impressions of trees or parts of trees; one of a bird, and one of a cow; four of crosses; three of circles, or of impressions of coins carried about the person; two of horseshoes; one of a nail; one of a metal comb; one of a number or numeral; one of the words of a sentence; and one of the back of an arm-chair.

There is no mention, so far as we are aware, of any imprinting on the bodies of the two hapless lovers mentioned by Gay; but a very little exercise of the imagination, aided by an element of credulity, would have sufficed to produce imaginary crosses, hearts, or trees. Those who know the story will remember that Pope and Gay were visiting at Stanton-Harcourt in 1718; that Gay described the incident in one of his letters; and that Pope memorialized it in verse. Two rustic lovers, John Hewit and Sarah Drew, about a week before the day fixed for their wedding, were at work with other harvesters in a field. A storm of thunder and lightning came on in the afternoon, and the laborers hastened for shelter to the trees and hedges. Sarah Drew, frightened and dismayed, fell in a swoon on a heap of barley, and John Hewit raked up some more barley, to shield her from the cruel blast: while thus engaged, an intensely vivid flash appeared; the barley was seen to smoke, and there lay the two lovers, he with one arm around her neck, and the other arm over her, as if to screen her from the lightning. Both were dead: her left eye was injured, and a black spot produced on her breast; while he was blackened nearly all over. Pope's epitaph on the hapless couple is engraved on a stone in the parish church of Stanton-Harcourt.

In all probability, no one explanation will apply to these several cases. The descriptions require to be examined closely; and they meet with the most consistent solution by separating them into groups. There is in the first place a love of the marvellous which induces some persons to stretch the truth in order to make up a striking story. Not habitually untruthful, they nevertheless yield to the temptation of so rounding off a narrative as to cause hearers and by-standers to make exclamations of the "Good gracious!" kind. Other persons, repeating what Jack told Dick that Sam had heard Bob say to Bill, do not reflect how much a story gathers as it travels from mouth to mouth, until the final version bears but slight resemblance to the original. In another group of instances, a physiological agency of much importance has to be taken into account Persons of nervous and excitable temperament, when under the influence of strong mental agitation, have been known to receive marks on some part of the body or limbs, corresponding in shape to the object which they were thinking of at the time; this is known to have occurred in other domains of human feeling; and there is nothing impossible in the occurrence of a similar phenomenon when the mind and the body are alike exposed to the action of a lightning-stroke. This was probably the case in regard to a French peasant-girl — one of the instances noticed by Poey. While tending a cow in a field, a storm came on; she took refuge under a tree; the cow fell dead from a stroke of lightning; the girl loosened her dress, that she might breathe more freely when nearly choked with agitation; and then she saw a picture of the cow imprinted on her breast. We give this story the credit of being truthfully told, and assign as the probable cause of the phenomenon a co-operation between a lightning-stroke and a vivid mental or nervous activity.

Where metal is concerned, the production of images or facsimiles may result more immediately from this rush of electricity which constitutes the passage of lightning. Wherever metal lies in the path, the flash takes that route in preference to one through wood, brick, or stone; but if the metal be discontinuous or interrupted, strange markings are often produced on neighboring substances, similar in shape to the piece of metal just traversed. This may have been the case in the accident which befell a young man in Cuba in 1828; after a lightning-flash, he found on his neck an imprint of a horseshoe, similar to one nailed up on the window of a house near him. If the ornaments were of brass or some other metal, we might perhaps place in the same category the narrative (one of those given by Poey) of a lady, at her château of Benatonnière in La Vendée; she was seated in her salon, in November 1830, when a storm came on; lightning appeared, and on the back of her dress was imprinted a facsimile of some ornaments on the back of a chair against which she was leaning.

There is every reason to believe, lastly, that many of the markings are nothing more than results of the forked zigzag course of the lightning itself. Mr. Tomlinson, in his interesting volume "The Thunderstorm," has gone somewhat fully into this subject. He had had occasion to observe the manner in which the disruptive discharge of electricity, from an electrical machine, marks out its path over a badly conducting surface, such as glass, and was struck by the tree-like impression produced. He gives a wood-cut representation of a surface struck by the flash or spark of a small Leyden jar; and it is impossible to avoid seeing how strikingly the markings assume the form of a tree. The probability is pointed out, that, in cases where persons struck by lightning have had tree-like marks imprinted on their persons, they have been hastily considered to be real images of actual trees close at hand. It may, moreover, be observed that some persons, when struck by lightning, have received blue marks or bruises; these may put on a ramified appearance, "not only from the irregular mode in which electricity travels about in search of the line of least resistance, but also from the smaller vessels becoming congested, and consequently visible."