LIGHTNING PRINTS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 124, 9 April 1862, Page 3

LIGHTNING PRINTS.

Chambers' Juurntll, among many interesting papers, has one on " Lightning Prints," from which we extract a few remarkable instances of lightning prints—a phenomenon, the first reeort of which is by St. Gregory, who mentions thai when the Emperor Julian attempted to reconstruct the Temple at Jerusalem, the workme: were obliged tq desist on account of a' storm, and having taking refuge in a church they had certain figures of crosses mysteriously printed upoi their clothes and bodies :— "In the year 17SG, that distinguishad raembei of the Academy of Sciences, Leroy, announced that Franklin had frequently repeated to bin. some forty years back, the case of a man who whilst standing at his door during a thunderstorm, saw the lightning fall upon a tree oppositi o him. It was afterwards remarked that a reversed image of the tr.ee was indelibly printei. [upon the hreiist of this man. Another still mon extraordinary cape occurred in the year 1812. It, was related by Mr James Shaw to'thc members of the Meteorological Society of London. In the year named there existed, near the village of Combe Bay, about four miles from the town of Bath, an extensive wood composed chiefly of oaks and nut trees. In the centre of the wood was a pasture ground of some fifty square yards in extent, where six sheep were lying when a storm came on, and 'all the sheep were killed by the lighting.' When the skins of these animals were at'cer.WiU'ds taken off; it "was observed that the internal portions of each soparato skin bore the most faithful image of the surrounding landscape —every detail of which was distinctly printed upon the skins. ' When the skins were taken from the animals,' says Mr Shaw,' a fac-simile of a portion of the surrounding scenery was visjhlo qn the inner surface of' ejielj skin, \ . , , I may add that the small field and its surrounding wood were so familiar to me and my schoolfellows, that when the skins were shown to us, we at once identified the local scenery so wonderfully represented.' These skins were exposed to public gaze for some time, as a curiosity, in the town of Bath. " In September, 1 P,25, lightning fell upon the ship II Buqn Ejeryo, lying at anchor in the Bay of Arinirq (I|ary)'.' 'A sailor who was seated at the foot of a ifl'as't was' struck deiid by the flash. On his body were observed two slight marks—the one yellow, the other black—^yrhieh proceeded from the man's neck, apd continued as far as the region of the kidneys, at which spot the most distinct image of a, horso shoe was printed. This image was the exact representation of a real horse-shoe nailed upon the mast, at the foot of which the sailor s;tt. Moreover, the image and the real object were exactly the same size. " Wonderful and exceptional as this fact may appear, we have, from Orioli, another very similar and no less extraordinary case. A sailor was (struck by lightning whilst asleep in his hammock on a ship lying an anchor in the port of Zanta

v Italy), and the number 41 was most distinctly printed upon his breast. The sailor was killed >y the discharge ; but all his comrades attested Hilt the Viguro of thij number did not exist upon Ho man's mv.ist before the accident. It was the .•xact copy ofa metallic figure 41 attached to tht iliip, and placed bet.wouu tliu kiiswn-mast, upon ■vhicli the lightning full, and the placo where themilor slept."