Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 September 1893 — Why Trees Attract Lightning. [ARTICLE]

Why Trees Attract Lightning.

No tree is entirely protected against being struck by lightning. When the atmosphere ia overcharged with electricity all of them are liable to become the aim of some holt, but the beech is the one in the whole category of trees that is more rarely struck than any other. Professor Heilman, in his statistics on this subject, says that lightning strikes pine wood trees fifteen times oftener and oak trees fifty-four times oftener than the beech. This fact is very well known to frequenters of timbered regions. Traces of lightning bolts are most frequently found on oak trees, while only rarely are they found in the beech. It was thought at first that the condition of the ground had much to do with this unequal distribution of lightning strokes of trees, but this is not the case. It is the characteristic condition of the tree itself that accounts for it. Trees which contain oily substances to a high degree, even in the summer, may be regarded as comparatively lightning-proof, while those containing glucose matter attract the lightning more frequently. Dead branches are very apt to increase this danger. It need only be cited that acorns are valuable because they contain fiftyfive per cent, of glucose matter and only four per oent. of fat, while from the nut of the beech, pig-nut oil is made.—[St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The Propaganda has begun negotiations (or the opening of two Catholic seminaries la India.