over-board, to put out the fire, and had eight men
killed, and nine hurt. The San Josef
(hundred and twelve guns), struck in the English
Channel, December 11, 1803, furnished a
curious instance of the action of the electric
force, for all the watch on deck were benumbed.
When the Sappho (eighteen guns) was struck off
the Western Islands, February 9, 1820, her
foremast was shivered, two men were killed on
the spot, four more died soon after from the
shock, four were lost overboard, and fourteen
were wounded. In another case, the Sultan
(seventy-four guns), struck off Mahon, August
12, 1808, the jib-boom was shivered, seven men
were killed on the spot, and three were
wounded.

We now select a different group of cases,
instances where ships have been struck at critical
moments, and in singularly unexpected places.
For example, one half of Sir J. B. Warren's fleet
was disabled off Toulon, just as they were hoping
to pounce on the French vessels. Again, three
of Lord Exmouth's vessels were crippled in
1813, at the same place, and under similar
circumstances. The Glory (ninety-eight guns)
was struck and crippled off Cape Finisterre,
July 17, 1805, just before Sir Robert Calder's
encounter with the combined fleets of France
and Spain. A still more singular case was that
of the Duke (ninety guns), struck off Martinique,
June, 1793, when actually under fire of
a battery. Her topmast was shivered into
small pieces, her mainmast was split through,
her sails were torn, and her deck was covered
with chips. Even more unfortunate was the
Guerriere (thirty-eight guns), struck off Charleston.
She soon after, though much injured,
engaged a large American frigate, and was
taken.

We pass to curious phenomena attending
these fatalities. On the 23rd of July, 1841,
the Acteon was struck off the coast of Central
America. The vessel was running with square
yards, under dark clouds and heavy squalls of
rain. Suddenly, a tremendous crash of thunder
broke over the maintop, and the lightning ran
in a luminous stream down the conductors.
There seemed to be no interval between the
flash and the report. The carpenter, standing
with his back against the pump winches, and
near the mainmast, compared the sound to a
ship's broadside. The ship shook under it, and the
cutlasses, stowed round the mainmast, rattled.
It was accompanied by a loud whizzing sound.
The night was terribly dark, and a heavy sea
raging. The conductor was uninjured, and no
harm was done.

The Beagle (ten guns) was struck, in August,
1832, when at anchor off Monte Video. The ship
was suddenly enveloped in a blaze of fire,
accompanied by a simultaneous crash. The ship
trembled; the mast appeared a pillar of fire;
the beam over the gun-room, along which the
conductor passed, vibrated, and as the lightning
passed along it, there was a sound as of rushing
water. A hissing sound was also heard. In
February, 1842, the Beagle was again struck, off
South Australia. An officer was at the time
within a foot of the masts, but heard nothing
but a vibrating rattle. The noise has been
sometimes compared to the hissing noise of
boiling water.

On the 26th of September, 1846, the Fisgard
(forty-two guns) was struck, while at anchor in
the Niegually river in the Oregon territory. A
double stream fell on the vane spindle, and on the
lower mast. The copper spindle was fused, and
a minute red shining globule formed at its
extremity. The report was compared to a double
broadside. A boatswain's mate, standing abaft
the mainmast on the starboard side, was for
the moment blinded by the intense light, and
knocked down; while a midshipman felt himself
thrust aside by the expanded air. An officer
standing in one of the berths with his elbow on
the case covering the conductor, heard a sound
like a pistol-shot, but felt no electrical shock or
any other inconvenience. Pine-trees on shore
were set on fire, and, from the coast, the ship
appeared to be covered with fire, and the whole
air to be alight. At the moment of the report, a
death-like silence fell upon the men. Those
who were smoking, involuntarily laid down their
pipes; and the band, which was performing on
the quarter-deck, suddenly ceased playing. The
first impulse of the men was to let water into the
ship for the use of the engines, under an
impression, from the awful violence of the
discharge, that fire must instantly break out. One of
the lieutenants, at the moment the lightning fell,
was speaking to a sailor about the conductor.
The crash was compared by him to the sound
of five hundred simultaneous broadsides.

In another case, the sound is called "a
frizzing sound;" in a third, "like the whizzing of
musket-balls." In all these cases, it was not
the lightning that was seen to run down the
conductor. The stream seen, is a harmless
luminousness, following, and consequent on, the
electric fluid. The most sensitive inflammable
powder cast upon this luminousness would not
take fire. Electricity itself, Wheatstone proved
to move at the rate of five hundred and seventy-
six thousand miles a second; its light lasts
only about the one million five hundred and
fifty-two thousandth part of a second.

In many cases, lightning has exploded in the
sea close to a vessel without injuring it; it is
often attended with a suffocating sulphurous
smoke. The theory of the conductor, is, to
receive and mitigate the shock of the electric
discharge. It receives and transmits much of
the electricity of the clouds without any report.
It is then that the conductor becomes luminous.
The discharge follows from the redundant fluid.
When it meets with unresisting facile
conductors, such as the metals, it is robbed of its
harmful and explosive power, and turns to an
evanescent luminous current. It is only in
ill-conducted matter, such as air or wood, that
it rends, slays, and detonates.

In fact, the lightning striking a conductor,
is treated like a detected thief at a theatre, who
is hustled and passed safely out between an