& REMARKABLE OCCURRENCE.

West Coast Times, Issue 10429, 7 December 1896, Page 4

& REMARKABLE OCCURRENCE.

From Dr. Wilson's Science Notes in a late . issue of the " London News " we cull the following : —

A correspondent from New South Wales records a very curious experienc >)t which he was the subject, and sug gests that in these later days ot che New Photography and Rontgen's Rays some explanation of the phenomena described may be forthcoming from the side of physical science. In 1869, he halted on the edge of the ninety- mije desert (South Australia), and rested in an unoccupied shepherd's hut. The hut was made of wood, and weather-boarded, in place of being merely corapqsed pf slabs uf wood. There were, therefore, no spaces in the walls of the hut, as are ordinarily found in roughly-built shelters of this kind.

This point is of some importance in the narrative, for, as we shall see, the perfect opacity of the walls forms a leading feature of the spot, and as the traveller sat on his improvised couoh, a vivid flaai} of lightning occurred, and then the walls of the hut which he was facing, to use his own words, " seemed completely to disapppear." He saw distinctly the whole or the landscape outside. There was the small patch of red gum trees and smal scattered clump of honeysucWe and scrub with the clouds and the rain.

vIu I thought the hut had been struck" continued the correspondent, ''and yet the flash which came down the chimney during a preceding flash had shown a back wall clearly. To make sure I struck a light, and, sure enough there was the wall intact. Next mo. ning, of course, showed the same completeness of the hut."

This is a curious story, and it is scarcely to be wondered that when it has been scene to be reflected, as no doubt the retailed round the camp-fire or elsewhere the tale has been discredited. But it is perfectly possible on occasions for a

landscape was shown to the correspondent by a brilliant momentary flash.