Abstract
FULGURITES, or the tubes of fused sand which are sometimes formed when heavy discharges of lightning strike on sandy soil, are not common enough to make their study very easy. It has been frequently remarked that they usually have a spiral or cork-screw form, but, so far as I know, it has not been decided whether or not this is accidental, and whether the direction of rotation of the spiral remains constant in the same fulgurite, or whether it is always the same in the case of various discharges. Through a fortunate accident I recently hit upon a way of extending our knowledge of these curious autographs of thunderbolts. The accident referred to was the circumstance that I was standing within about 50 feet of the spot on our lawn where a rather heavy discharge struck a day or two ago. I was about to walk across the lawn at the time, but was delayed a moment to reply to a question, when the bolt fell. The report was not deafening, resembling the explosion of one of the modern dynamite cannon crackers with which we have become familiar. There was a distinct flash of fire at the surface of the ground, and a column of steam or smoke 6 or 8 feet high. On examining the spot I found three patches of withered clover in a line about 18 inches apart. At the centre of one was a hole about an inch in diameter, and in the neighbouring one a smaller hole of perhaps a quarter the size. It had been raining hard for a hour or more, and we had much rain for the past week, which made the ground an excellent conductor, and I was surprised to find that I could pass a straw down the larger hole a considerable distance.
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WOOD, R. Experimental Study of Fulguites. Nature 84, 70 (1910). https://doi.org/10.1038/084070a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/084070a0
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