Abstract
DURING a thunderstorm on Sunday afternoon, August 24, 1873, I saw a flash of lightning here exactly answering to Mr. Joule's description of “punctuation.” The note of the storm in my diary says:—“Lightning and thunder very frequent but not violent. One flash, very near, had the appearance of a chain of alternate links, and remained visible, I should think, for half a second, gradually fading out.” This persistence was, no doubt, mainly an optical illusion, but it shows the definiteness of the form. The flash was from cloud to cloud, and followed a very sinuous line, as described by Mr. Lawrence. Is not this what old books describe as “chain lightning?”
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SMITH, B. Remarkable form of Lightning. Nature 18, 302 (1878). https://doi.org/10.1038/018302c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/018302c0
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