This latter effect, however, occurs very frequently. Not only does the lightning melt and break the telegraph wires, but it injures the poles which support them.
These are sometimes broken, split, thrown down, burst, or splintered, sometimes into threads or shavings. Poles which have been blasted are often to be seen alternating with others which are uninjured. Thus, on the line from Philadelphia to New York, during a great storm, every alternate pole up to eight was broken or thrown down; the odd numbers were uninjured. We have mentioned a similar case already.
There are several accounts, too, of lightning in pursuit of trains.
On June 1, 1903, travellers by train from Carhaix to Morlaix, between Sorignac and Le Cloistre, saw lightning follow the train over a course of six kilometres, breaking or splitting several telegraph poles.
This feat has been observed more than once. The train is escorted by lightning flashes which succeed each other almost without cessation, and the travellers seem to be whirled through an ocean of flame.
Lightning rarely strikes the carriages; only on one occasion did it actually wreck one, by breaking a wheel. The mutilated coach, however, continued to hobble along until the injury was discovered.
Generally the fluid is content to wander about the rails, to the great terror of the passengers who witness this display of rather alarming magic. It spreads itself over masses of iron, as for instance the roofs and balconies in Paris, without striking any particular point.
The danger would be greater to a cyclist on a road. In the suburbs of Brussels, on July 2, 1904, a cyclist named Jean Ollivier, aged twenty-one years, was riding during a violent storm, when suddenly he was struck and killed on the spot.
We shall end this description of the whims and caprices of lightning by a notice of the blasting of a German military balloon. It happened in June, 1902. The aeronaut, whose car was steered by a sub-lieutenant, was held captive, and soared at a height of about 500 metres above the fortifications at Lechfeld, near Ingolstadt. All at once the aerial skiff was touched by an electric spark, caught fire, and began to descend, slowly at first, then swiftly. The aeronaut had the good luck to get off with a broken thigh. The five assistants, who worked the windlass and the telephone, also received shocks transmitted through the metal wires of the cable. They fell unconscious, but were quickly restored. This phenomenon, which is excessively rare, fittingly closes this odd collection of stories, fantastically illustrated by lightning.