How to Dodge Lightning.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 26, Issue 63, 3 August 1915, Page 2

How to Dodge Lightning.

Anyone standing some little distance from a tree should be safe from lightning,” .writes an electrical

expert. ‘‘The tree—being a bigger object—is more likely to collect an

electric charge, and will then act as ,

conductor. But a man walking across ' a bare space or open plain, would be quite likely to be struck, and if he were riding a bicycle or had an umbrella up, he would be in still greater 'danger. No one should ever hold up an umbrella in a storm, especially if >t has a steel handle. Thd" steel ribs leading to the steel handle make an excellent path for the current. ‘‘Death by lightning is the same as death by electrocution, except that the current is probably a good deal more powerful. It is unfortunate that human beings should be such good conductors and should have to rely for protection on so indifferent a non-conductor as air.

Under normal conditions it is good enpugh, but when exceptional con--1 diiions—such as those peculiar to a thunderstorm —cause a concentration of electricity, it fails, and lightning Is the result. A thunderstorm is really nothing but a contest between electrical charges and the air., The charge on the earth, in trying to get as near the charge in the cloud as possible, collects on the top of the tree or the umbrella, or whatever may happen to be the highest point, and there it impatiently waits till the electrical pressure becomes too much for the air, and contact is established. “The most dangerous conditions are when the charge from one overloaded cloud topples over, as it were, on to a charge ,on a lower cloud. The electrical pressure is then so great that the air suddenly .gives way, and the charge rushes to the nearest point on earth. Often this is an isolated tree, and if there are people' sheltering under it they ' are probably doomed. The , damp sap in the trunk is a good conductor, but a human body is better and the current is likely to leave the trunk and go to earth through the body of anyone standing near enough. ■ “It does not seem to be generally, known that the stripping of baric from the trunk of the tree is due only to an indirect action of the current. The heat caused by its passage is enough to form steam from the moisture in the sap, and the expansion of the steam bursts the bark off. Much remains to be known about the electricity of the air, but unluckily it is rather a dangerous subject to investigate. Several scientists have lost their lives by flying a kite up into a cloud, and giving the charge ' a path through the non-conducting air, along a wire held on the hand.

"The best advice that can be given to anyone who is caught in a thunderstorm is not to shelter under a tree, and to remember that it is better to get wet than to run the risk of providing an easy path for a current of electricity on its way to earth.”