Chapter 11

STRUCK BY LIGHTNING

There was but little further interest in kite-flying that afternoon, when the young observer ended his story of the Galveston hurricane. The boys had been brought close to danger and they crowded around the stranger with questions concerning the hurricane. The lads were all the more thrilled by reason of the fact that the sky was becoming dark and ominous, and that, even while the stranger spoke, the clouds grew more threatening.

"There might be a hurricane coming now," said the youngest of the group, looking fearfully at the sky.

"No," answered the observer, "that's nothing but a thunderstorm. You'll never forget the look of the hurricane as it comes near, if you've seen it once."

"Nor a tornado," put in Ross, and he told of Dan'l's death and of his narrow escape with Anton.

"I was in the St. Louis tornado," the observer rejoined, and in turn he told of the devastation that had struck the city in 1896.[1]

[Footnote 1: While this book was in press a most destructive series of tornadoes visited the United States, Illinois especially suffering. Hundreds of deaths were recorded.]

Meantime the thunderstorm was drawing closer and the thunder and the lightning grew gradually nearer.

"Do you suppose, sir," asked Tom, "that it would be safe to send up the kite? I've been listening to the hurricane story, and haven't taken the weekly observation yet. Franklin sent up a kite in a storm."

"It might be safe, but I wouldn't advise it," answered the Forecaster. "Franklin did it deliberately, for a different purpose, and it was because of his experiment with a kite that we first found out about lightning."

"Yes," answered Tom, who knew the story well, "and he collected sparks from the string. But that was a silk string, Mr. Levin. I should think this piano wire would be much worse."

"Why?" asked the Forecaster. "On the contrary, it would act as a lightning-rod. Your kite reel is of metal and fastened to the ground. Wire is a much better conductor of electricity than the body, so that there's less likelihood of your being struck."

"Is it the difference between a good conductor and a bad one that makes people put up lightning-rods?" asked Fred.

"Certainly. All that a lightning-rod does is to convey to the ground the electricity that is about to strike a building. That's the whole system of lightning protection. I can explain it to you fairly well by trees. You know in fairy tales that some trees are supposed to be wicked and other trees are supposed to be good?"

"Yes, sir," put in Anton, "Dan'l used to talk about that. He always used to say that the oak tree was a black witch tree and that the beech tree and the alder tree were white witches."

"Like nearly all folk-lore," replied the Forecaster, "there's a mighty good reason for that superstition. Folk-lore, after all, is merely keen observation reduced to a saying or a story. It is true that the oak-tree is a black witch so far as lightning is concerned and that the beech and alder are white witches. The proportion of trees struck by lightning has often been counted and for every fifty-four oaks struck, only one beech, or birch, or maple or alder is struck. Elms are fairly dangerous, being forty to the beech's one, and pines are less so, their ratio being fifteen. Not only this, boys, but a good deal depends on the way in which a tree is struck. An oak-tree may be riven into splinters, showing the terrible resistance that it gives to the stroke. A beech-tree, usually, is killed outright, yet shows but little outward injury. The oak has resisted the current, it is a bad conductor; the beech has allowed the current to flow directly to the ground.

"So, boys, if you are in a mixed forest and stand beneath a tree, the figures show that you are fifty-four times as likely to be struck with lightning when standing beneath an oak, instead of a beech. Not only that, but if the oak be struck, the lightning may jump from the tree to you more surely than it would from a beech-tree.

"It's surprising," he went on, "but even trees of closely related character show very different effects of lightning. 'Nothing but lightning,' writes John Muir, 'hurts the Sequoia or Big Tree. It lives on through indefinite thousands of years, until burned, blown down or undermined, or shattered by some tremendous lightning stroke. No ordinary bolt ever hurts the Sequoia. I have seen silver firs split into long peeled rails radiating like spokes of a wheel from a hole in the ground where the tree stood. But the Sequoia, instead of being split and shivered, usually has forty to fifty feet of its brash knotty top smashed off in short chunks, about the size of cord-wood, the rosy-red ruins covering the ground in a circle one hundred feet wide or more.

"'I never saw any that had been cut down to the ground, or even to below the branches, except one about twelve feet in diameter, the greater part of which was smashed to fragments. All the very old Sequoias have lost their heads by lightning. All things come to him who waits, but of all living things, Sequoia is perhaps the only one able to wait long enough to make sure of being struck by lightning. Thousands of years it stands ready and waiting, offering its head to every passing cloud, as if inviting its fate, praying for Heaven's fire as a blessing, and when, at last, the old head is off, another of the same shape immediately grows on.'"

"And then, I suppose," said Fred, "it will never be struck again. Lightning never strikes twice in the same place."

"Oh, yes, it does," said the Forecaster. "That's all nonsense. Take the Eiffel Tower in Paris, for example. That's struck nearly every time there's a thunderstorm. But lightning can't hurt the Eiffel Tower because practically the entire building is a lightning-rod and it has been very carefully grounded into deep wells, a long way below the ground."

"I've been wondering," said Anton thoughtfully, with his characteristic opening, "just how a thunder-and-lightning storm happens. You promised to explain it to me, Mr. Levin," he continued, "and you never have."

"Very good," said the Forecaster, briskly, "I'll explain it now. And you couldn't have picked a better day for your question, Anton, because we can see the tail end of that thunderstorm going off to the east, and, if I'm not mistaken, there's another one coming up to the south-west. Do you see that layer of cirro-stratus clouds?"

"Yes, sir."

"And do you notice those festoons of cloud, slowly coming down and dissolving--you see there's one small one there, and another one a little larger, behind?"

"Sure!"

"Well, those are the heralds of a thunderstorm. We've only seen those since my nephew began talking about the hurricane, about an hour ago. Away off on the horizon, though, you can see a bigger bunch of those festoons, dropping from the five-mile height of the cirro-stratus and condensing away down lower. This heat that we're now feeling will diminish, just as soon as that cloud covers the sun, not because the sun is hidden, but because of a change of wind."

"But the storm's coming up at right angles to the wind," said Tom, "the wind's a little east of south."

"It'll blow from the north-east presently," declared the Forecaster oracularly.

"Directly opposite to the storm?" ejaculated the kite expert in surprise.

"Certainly," was the answer, "that's a part of the thunderstorm formation. You can see now," he continued, "how the thunder heads of cumulo-nimbus are beginning to show, leaden in color below, with the white billowy tops. They're very thick, those masses of cloud, perhaps two miles thick, and the gray rain curtain trails along behind them. Well, Tom, what is it?" he added, turning to the boy, who was claiming his attention.

"The wind's shifting," answered the lad.

"To the eastward? Of course. It'll be north-east in a minute or two, as I told you. It's got to be."

"But why, sir?" asked Tom. "I don't see why a surface wind should have to blow up against a storm."

"That," said the Forecaster, "is quite easy. If the rain is falling, it brings down a mass of cold air with it, displacing the warm air that lies before the advancing storm. The warm air is driven forward, but, at the same time, the descending cold air requires warm air to replace it in its turn, and the warm air, therefore, curves backward and flows into the upper portion of the storm cloud, where its moisture is condensed as rain. So, my boy, a little distance in advance of a thunderstorm there are three currents of air, an upper current of cold air, traveling in the same direction as the storm, and driving the cirrus clouds before it; a current of warm air, going in the opposite direction to the storm and pouring a torrent of warm air into the cloud; and the cold squall, which drives out from under the thunder-cloud and which comes in violent gusts."

"But I thought," said Fred, "that thunder and lightning came from two clouds banging together. If most of the thunder storms travel from the west, where does this banging come in?"

"It doesn't come in at all," the Forecaster replied; "thunder and lightning do not result from clouds striking each other. It's not quite so simple as that.

"The lower air is full of positive electricity just as the surface of the earth is charged with negative electricity. As you know, boys, rain is formed by a lot of little drops of moisture combining to form one large drop, which, when it is heavy enough, falls to the ground. Now the surface of every drop of moisture is charged with electricity. When these drops come together to make one big drop, the surface of the big drop is proportionately much smaller than the combined surfaces of all the small drops. There isn't room enough on the surface of the big drop to hold all the electricity that existed on the surface of the larger number of smaller drops and, therefore, a great deal of electricity is set free.

"Only a few flashes of lightning reach the earth. Most lightning-flashes occur between two cloud masses in the body of the thunder-cloud. Photographs of these show them to consist of scores of fine branches which jump from one cloud to the other, the flash being strong or weak according to the distance to be jumped. You can see that a very faint flash could jump a distance of an inch, but that it would take a stronger current to jump a yard, and that a terrific force of electricity must have accumulated before the current is strong enough to break down the resistance of the non-conducting air and jump a quarter of a mile. When lightning is attracted by the earth, it means that the air between the thunder-cloud and the earth is being subjected to a constant strain, and the weakest place gives way first. The weakest place, generally, is the place when the jump is shortest and there is a good conductor available.

"One of the reasons that buildings and trees are struck by lightning is because they project up into the air, and according to their height, they remove a corresponding amount of the poorly conducting air. If the lower edge of a thunder-cloud is two thousand five hundred feet above the air, and the spire of a church is five hundred feet high, it follows that it is easier for a flash to jump two thousand feet than two thousand five hundred. So when the electricity-bearing cloud comes over the church spire the flash will leap to the church, five hundred feet of obstacle being removed. The highest building, therefore, is usually struck first, or the highest tree in a forest.

"A lightning-rod or conductor is the best preventive against the destruction of a building by lightning, if the rod sticks up in the air above the building, even a couple of feet. The current will more readily strike the lightning-rod. As these are made of metal--copper or iron, generally--which are extremely good conductors, the current flows through them to the ground without harming the building.

"The big lightning flashes that you see, boys, aren't always a single flash, but often a whole series of flashes, which occasionally run up as well as down. The resistance of the air being broken down, makes a path for the electrical discharge, so that the conductor does not have to stand the entire strain of the cloud at once, but only in a series of discharges. Photographs of lightning flashes show these very clearly."

"I've never done any lightning photography," said Ralph disgustedly, "I'd never thought of it."

"You try it," said the Forecaster, "and you'll find that there are no two flashes of lightning that look alike. Some of them are several miles long. One thing you will notice at once, Ralph, and that is that lightning is never zigzag, the way you see it in pictures, but runs in an irregular line, winding a little like a river-course."

"How about sheet-lightning?" asked Ralph.

"That's just the same as any other kind of lightning," was the reply, "except that it doesn't come to the earth or is so distant that the earth flash is not visible. It is generally due to discharges between upper and lower clouds, and the lower clouds are illuminated by the lightning. Heat-lightning, as it is called, is pretty much the same thing."

"Father told me once," said Fred, "that during a thunder-storm, a ball of fire came down on the chimney and rolled all around the room like a bubble of quicksilver and then struck a shovel that was standing in the corner, when it blew up with a bang. What was that, Mr. Levin?"

"That's globe, or ball lightning," was the reply. "There have been some very curious freaks done with these electric balls. One of them, in a baker's shop at Paris, jumped into an open oven door and exploded, giving off so much heat that a pan of biscuits was baked in the fraction of a second. At least, so Flammarion tells the story, though it sounds a bit queer."

"But what's the cause of ball-lightning?"

"We don't know," answered the Forecaster, simply.

"A couple of days before the Galveston hurricane," put in the young observer, "I noticed two or three examples of St. Elmo's fires, and even had them from my fingers."

"What are St. Elmo's fires?" queried Fred.

"Corpse candles, they used to be called," the young observer answered, "or St. John's fires. They are brush-like discharges of electricity, being discharged from the earth towards the sky, and generally gather on elevated points, such as the masts of ships, the tips of trees or the iron railings around a roof. It was on the top of the Weather Bureau building in Galveston that I saw them, just the other day. They look like a bluish flame, and give a crackling sound. I had my hand on the rail and was reaching up with the other hand towards the anemometer when I noticed from my third and little fingers two blue flames burning. It looked exactly as if my hand were alight."

"Weren't you afraid of being killed?" the boy asked.

"No," said the observer, "that's not the way that one gets killed with lightning. The St. Elmo's fire is a very weak electric discharge. My fingers tingled a little, that was all."

"But do many people get killed with lightning?" queried Ross. "I thought that it was really quite rare."

"Not as rare as you would think," the Forecaster answered. "About five hundred people are killed by lightning every year in the United States and there is an annual property loss of eight million dollars."

"Is that high as compared with other countries?" Anton asked.

"Yes," the Forecaster replied, "more people are killed by lightning in the Western States than in any place in the world. In the Dakotas, out of every million deaths twenty-seven are due to lightning; in Missouri, twenty-one. In Hungary sixteen out of every million deaths are due to lightning; in the United States as a whole, ten; in Germany, six; in England, four; in France and Sweden, three, and in Belgium, two. The greatest number of deaths by lightning are on the plains, the fewest in the cities."

"I should think lightning would be much worse in the city," said Ross, "because if a building is struck with a lot of people in it, they'd all be killed."

The Forecaster shook his head.

"Not at all," he said. "Last year, for example, a church was struck by lightning on a Sunday morning, during a religious service. There were three hundred people in the building. It was a bolt of unusual force, which practically wrecked the church. Only six people were killed by lightning, thirty were injured from the falling timbers, seventy were made unconscious by shock, and two hundred were absolutely uninjured.

"The largest number of persons killed by lightning at any one time in America was in an amusement park in Chicago. Eleven people had huddled into a zinc-lined hut under a pier, for protection from the rain. The lightning struck the pier and jumped to the hut. If the hut had touched the wet sand, none of them would have been hurt, but the hut was on posts a couple of inches above the beach. The lightning could not escape to the ground and it spread from the zinc sides, killing every one there. A piece of wire a sixteenth of an inch thick and six inches long, running from the hut into the ground, might have saved every life."

In the distance a flash of lightning followed by a low rumble of thunder told of the nearer approach of the storm.

The Galveston observer took his watch from his pocket and counted the seconds between the flash and the thunder.

"Fifty seconds!" he continued. "The front of the storm is still ten miles away."

"Do you reckon five seconds to a mile between the lightning and the thunder?" asked Anton.

"Yes," the observer replied, "light travels so fast that for something as near as a lightning flash, you can reckon it as instantaneous, while sound only travels at a little more than a thousand feet a second."

"But why does thunder make a noise?" asked Fred. "You told me the clouds didn't bang together."

"They don't," the Forecaster answered. "Thunder is caused by the electric discharge. You've heard Bob's big wireless outfit crackle, when he sends out a spark, haven't you?"

"Sure," said Fred, "you can hardly hear yourself talk, when Bob's got his wireless busy."

"And why does that crackle? Do you know, Bob?" he asked, turning to the wireless expert.

"No," answered the boy.

"You've often heard the crackling of a near-by thunder compared to an irregular volley of rifles, haven't you?"

"Yes."

"Naturally, because that's exactly what it is. A rifle shot is an explosion caused by the firing of a powder, which, in turn, means the expansion of the powder into gases, the force of that expansion driving forward the bullet. Sound, as you know, is a series of air vibrations. The explosion wave sets up a series of these vibrations, by compressing the air in front of it.

"Lightning does the same thing. When a lightning flash breaks down the resistance of the air, and passes through a channel of air, it heats the air suddenly to a temperature of two or three thousand degrees, causing a terrific expansion along the entire length of the flash and starting an explosion wave. This compresses the air on all sides and sets sound vibrations in action. As soon as the flash is discharged, the air rushes back to fill the partial vacuum that the heating by electricity has caused, adding force to the vibrations.

"That's why you hear the crackle of near-by thunder. You are near enough to hear the explosions made by all the little side-branches of the lightning flash--you can hear the same sometimes when you comb your hair or rub a cat's fur--while the big crashes are due to your hearing, all at once, the main wave of sound set in action by the flash jumping from the cloud to the earth or from one cloud to another.

"The rumble of the thunder--which used to be thought the rolling of a chariot in the sky, is due to the different distances of various portions of the discharge, to the echo of the explosions from the projecting hills and valleys of the cloud forms, and to the irregular shape of the earth, when the sound waves strike the ground."

"Hail is electric, too, isn't it?" said Anton. "In a hail-storm the other day I noticed that the hail jumped up a lot higher from an old piece of iron that lay on the ground than from a stone right beside it. I tried the iron and the stone with a marble, after the storm was over, and the marble bounced higher from the stone. I figured that there must be some kind of electric repulsion and that the hail must be electrified."

"It is, very often," the Forecaster answered. "In some very violent electric storms, you'll see hail jump up as if it were alive, when it strikes the earth. Of course, boys, there's some slight elasticity in a hail-stone, too, because a good many of them are made like an onion or a pearl, with a number of layers round each other."

"But why in the world should a hail-stone be made like an onion?" said Fred, with a puzzled stare. "Isn't hail just frozen rain?"

"No," answered the Forecaster, "frozen rain is sleet, which is never seen in summer. It is caused by the rain in the upper air falling through a cold layer of surface air and becoming frozen on the way. Sleet is ice, and transparent.

"Hail never falls in winter, only in summer, and almost always in connection with a thunderstorm. It is made by drops of moisture, like very fine rain, being carried by the strong upward currents of a thunderstorm to altitudes where the air is very cold, there becoming coated with a layer of snow, and becoming heavier, falling through the less active upward currents on the edge of a storm. As these snow-covered frozen raindrops fall through the clouds, they grow bigger, because on their cold snow surfaces the moisture condenses and is frozen to a skin of ice. At the base of the cloud, they are often sucked in by the upward current and carried up again for another layer of snow, falling again through the clouds and being covered with another skin of ice. This may happen a dozen or a hundred times, the hailstones growing in size with every successive layer of snow and ice, until at last they become so heavy that they can no longer be carried up by the ascending currents, and fall to the ground."

"No wonder hailstones sometimes get so big!" exclaimed Fred. "I've seen them as big as pigeon's eggs. I never could understand it."

"I've seen hailstones that weighed more than half a pound," the Forecaster answered. "Not so very long ago, two ranchers and six hundred head of cattle were killed by hail in one Texas storm. Not a single animal was left alive. The loss from hail in our Western states is so large that most of the progressive farmers pay heavy hail insurance. Jagged bits of hail the size of a child's fist are not at all uncommon. If I'm not mistaken," he continued, "we may have some hail this afternoon, but nothing like that. This county isn't in the regular hail-belt."

During the description of the storm, Tom had been reeling in his kite and after the week's observations had been duly made and recorded, the boys prepared to scatter. Before they left, the Forecaster turned to them, his hand on Anton's shoulder.

"I think you boys ought to know," he said, "that I received a letter the other day from the Chief of the Weather Bureau. He's going down to New Orleans next month, and has promised to drop off here and spend the night with me. We were chums at college. He ought to meet the Mississippi League of the Weather."

An excited cheer went up from the boys.

"And what's more," the Forecaster went on, "I can tell you this--that just as soon as Anton is old enough, there will be a place waiting for him in the Bureau. He knows almost enough now to pass the Civil Service Exam, and in a couple of years he'll be as well equipped to enter the Service as any of the boys that are going in. I miss my guess if we don't find out, some day, that Issaquena County has given to the United States one of the best meteorologists of the next generation."

"Three cheers for Anton!" shouted Fred.

They were given heartily and the boys separated in groups, excitedly discussing what they ought to do to prepare for the visit of the Chief of the Weather Bureau. Anton and Ross drove home to Anton's place together, Ross driving and the crippled lad, with his eyes glowing with enthusiasm, talking about the work he intended to do in the ranks of the Weather Bureau.

Meanwhile, the storm grew nearer and nearer. The thunder, which had been rolling menacingly, now came with shorter and sharper claps.

"I wonder if we'll get home before the rain," said Ross and leaned forward to slap the pony with the reins.

At the instant that he leaned forward there was a blinding flash of light, and, almost simultaneously, a terrific crash.

For a second Anton was stunned, and then, as the frightened pony started to bolt, he saw he was alone.

Ross was gone.

The crippled lad cast a frightened glance over his shoulder and saw his chum lying on the ground beside the roadway, stripped to the skin. Some pieces of his clothing, burning and smouldering, lay a few feet away.

Grabbing the reins, Anton managed to pull the pony down to a walk and scrambled out, awkwardly, with the crutch, but rapidly.

The lightning, as so often happens, had snatched every stitch of Ross's clothes from him. There was not a mark of a burn on the boy's body, but he lay deathly still, with his arm cramped under him.

Anton, exerting all his strength, rolled his chum over on his back. Then, kneeling across him, as best he could with his lame leg, he took Ross's wrists, jerked his arms to their full length, brought the wrists back upon the chest and pressed. Again he stretched the arms out, again brought them back, and pressed. Again, and again and again.

Time passed and the perspiration stood out on the crippled lad's forehead and trickled down into his eyes and the corners of his mouth. Yet he did not pause for a second.

He stretched the arms out, brought them in and pressed down upon the chest.

Again and again and again.

Fifteen minutes passed, and there was no sign.

Probably further work was of no use, but Anton persisted. He could not stop, as long as there was a chance.

Out, in again, and pressure on the chest.

A clatter of approaching wheels caused Anton to look up. It was the buggy, with his father whipping the pony to full speed, returning along the road to find out what accident had happened. Anton shouted, but did not stop.

Out, in again, and pressure on the chest.

The buggy stopped and his father jumped out.

"Who is it?" he asked.

"Ross," answered Anton, "struck by lightning!"

"Dead?" queried his father.

"He can't be!" declared Anton passionately, and went on with his artificial respiration.

"Let me do that a while," said his father.

"Wait!" cried Anton.

He thought he saw an eyelid flutter.

Out, in again, and pressure on the chest.

"He's coming to!" the man declared.

Yes, that was a movement. The lips parted. There was a faint heave of the chest, and Anton's father, stooping down, felt a slight trembling of the boy's heart. It fluttered, hesitated, stopped; then trembled again, and struck into a low soft throb, irregular indeed, but still a definite throb.

Out, in again, and pressure on the chest.

For five minutes more Anton continued his artificial respiration, silently, and then Ross opened his eyes.

"What's wrong?" he asked, faintly.

"You've had a lightning shock," answered Anton.

"I thought you were dead," put in the lad's father, "but it looks as though Anton had pulled you through."

Ross smiled at his chum.

"Bully for you, old boy," he said weakly, "the sea-wall licked the hurricane and you've licked the lightning-flash!"

THE END

U. S. SERVICE SERIES

By FRANCIS ROLT-WHEELER

Illustrations from photographs taken in work for U. S. Government

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