Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 June 1888 — Safety from Lightning. [ARTICLE]

Safety from Lightning.

New York Commetciil Advertiser. “What is the safest place during a thqpder storm?” was asked of a professor versed in electricity. “Well,” said he, “to be surrounded by dry air is considered important for safety. It is owing to the resistance the lightning* meets with when passing through the air that we are made sensible of its effects. We see it flashing among the clouds; we hear it as thunder in its passage, and when we are near an electrical machine during its excitement, or when near a lightning’s current, we can feel, smell, and taste it. Thunder is a noise evidently caused by the 'rapid motion of the electricity, thereby producing a vacuum and prolonged by echo among the clouds. If your house has a properly constructed lightning conductor the'safest place in the room is adjacent to the rod. “But if your house has no conductor, it is safer to retire to the middle of the room and sit in a recumbent position during the height of the storm, having first shut all doors and windows to preserve the air inside as dry as possible. The common caution not to stand near a lightning rod, stove funnel, or iron Tence, etc., is erroneous, for it the metals you stand or sit by reach above your head or to the floor or into the ground a sufficient depth, you are much safer in such a situation than otherwise. A building properly provided ‘with lightning roils is a safe retreat during a thun-der-storm.”