A CURIOUS ACTION.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XV, Issue 222, 18 September 1880, Page 4

A CURIOUS ACTION.

One of the American Courts has been called upon to decide a matter not only very novel and curious in itself, but which is likely to entail momentous consequences for a good many insurance companies. The plantiff in the suit had insured his property against lightning, and he claims from the insurance company compensation for damages— which are popularly supposed to have resulted from a whirlwind. It is reported that he hopes to make good his claim through the evidence of members of the Signal Corps— the American meteorological organization, that is to say. "What this evidence may be we are not informed, except as to one witness whose testimony may probably be accepted as a clue to the nature of the proof generally. Professor Tice of St. Louis, who is, we believe, one of the observers connected with the American system, has recently disclosed the results of a tour of inspection he has been making over the track of the tornado which wrought such havoc in the valley of the Missouri some time ago. This tetrific " wind "as everybody supposed it to be, performed some astonishing feats. It bore off a factory chimney for a considerable distance, and literally demolished a large number of buildings whilst ifcs effects on trees and shrubs were of the most curious character. In many instances it did not tear them up by the roots, but tore the bark off their stems, and that not only on the Bide exposed to the storm, but all round them, while the ends of branches were stripped of their leaves and split up into fibres. Professor Tice affirms that all this was the work not of the wind but 1 of electricity ; that in fact it was not a tornado of wind at all, but a terrific electrical diaturbance. The chimney ! just mentioned was carried off by the storm though the building from which it was wrenched was left almost untouched, the fact being that the chimney was an iron one. In many capes the Professor found that buildings with iron roofs were rent in pieces while others directly in the path of the storm, but which had ordinary shingle roofs, were left untouched. The action on the Irees he explains by assuming that the sap and moisture of their trunks by the electric currents' passing down them converted into steam, the sudden expansion of which tore the bark and twigs into fragments. He notices, too, that for 145 miles the storm followed the track, of a railway,, and, as it were, swallowed up all the water in its course. All the facts he discovered tend to convince him that there was really no wind. in this tempest, but electricity only, and that, as we understand it, he takes to be the case' with cyclones generally. If this view is supported in the law courts, it will no doubt be found that damage done *by such' tempests must be compensated for by those who insure against " lightning."