Abstract
PROF. MCMILLAN'S interesting letter in NATURE of July 25 (p. 295) contains some minute details of the effects of a lightning-stroke on a house near Calcutta, on June 8 last. I agree with the writer that such cases are of value to electrical science, especially when reported by a competent observer. In Prof. McMillan's excellent letter there is one word to which I object, and that is “vagaries,” as applied to electricity at high potential. When lightning enters a house, it is as much subject to law as when it flashes from the cloud to the earth, and does not behave with the whim, caprice, or freak implied by the word “vagary.” In the absence of continuous conductors, the electrical discharge drags into its path light, conducting substances, which assist its progress, and by means of which it can strike through considerable distances and in various directions, as in the case before us. As to the effect of the discharge on the air of the house, Mr. McMillan appears to have made a real advance towards the solution of a difficult problem—namely, What is the origin of the powerful odour produced by a lightning-discharge within an inclosed space, such as a room or a ship? In most cases, the odour is compared to that of burning sulphur—“the ship seen ed to be nothing but sulphur,” was entered in the log of the Montague, after having been struck by lightning. Now as far back as 1785, Cavendish's famous experiment proved that electrical discharges in a confined mass of air lead to the formation of nitric acid, and Liebig found that acid in seventeen samples of rain-water collected during thunder-storms. Nevertheless, with these facts before him, Snow Harris wrote: “From whence this odour arises is still an interesting problem in physics,” and he declines to discuss “those chemical views which some able philosophers have entertained of the nature of the odour emitted.” Arago also states that the odour is generally compared to that of burning sulphur; but he adds: “others compare it to phosphorus, others to nitrous gas”; and significantly remarks: “L'odeur de gaz nitreux serait le plus facile à expliçuer.” Now, Prof. McMillan has shown that nitrogen teroxide, more or less diluted with air, was sufficient in the case so ably reported by him, to account for the colour and odour of the atmosphere produced within the house by the electric discharge. “The whole house seemed to be filled with an orange-coloured gas, mixed with clouds of dust affecting the breathing like fumes of burning sulphur,” is the description given by the occupier of the house.
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TOMLINSON, C. On some Effects of Lightning. Nature 40, 366 (1889). https://doi.org/10.1038/040366a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/040366a0
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