hich it tore into
shivers) and melted a watch in the pocket of a man who was sitting close
by, without at all injuring him. He was not even aware of what had
happened until, on taking out his watch, he found it fused into one
mass. Instances might be cited where a portion of the shoe was carried
away without serious injury to the wearer, and where knitting-needles,
scissors and other household implements have been struck, sometimes
conducting the current to the person with fatal effect.

During a thunderstorm in France in July, 1858, a peasant-woman, on her
way home from the fields, was struck down by lightning. No wound was
detected upon her person, but her hair was singed and a part of a silver
comb melted. Here metal seems to have conducted the electricity to the
body. On the other hand, the traveller Brydone relates a circumstance
which happened to a lady who was regarding a thunderstorm from her
window. At a flash of lightning her bonnet was reduced to ashes, nothing
else about her being affected. Brydone supposes the electric current to
have been attracted by the metallic wire which maintained the shape of
her bonnet. Hence he proposes that either these wires be abandoned or in
times of danger a metallic chain be attached to the bonnet, by which the
charge might pass to the earth. Accordingly, we find that it became
fashionable in France at that period to wear on the top of the bonnet an
ornament of bright metal connecting with a small silver chain dropping
down to the ground. At about the same time umbrellas were carried fitted
with wires and chain for a similar purpose.

In July, 1819, lightning fell upon the prison of Biberach in Suabia, and
there struck, in a common apartment, among twenty prisoners, one only--a
condemned captain of brigands, who was chained about the waist. A
similar arrangement of metal proved fatal in another case. On the 9th of
October, 1836, on the coast of Italy, a young man was struck by
lightning and killed. It was found that he wore a girdle containing gold
coins. Undoubtedly, danger or safety depends on properly placing the
conducting object. It may convey the current to the vital organs or it
may ward off the stroke. Probably any line of metal parallel with the
length of the body when upright would be in some degree a protection.
The noted Dr. King once saw a military company receive a discharge of
electricity from the clouds upon their bayonets, whence their muskets
conducted it t