STRANGE EFFECT OF LIGHTNING.
Tho Melbourne Argus of the Bth ult. states that a very severe thunderstorm broke over this district to tho westward of Camperdown on Friday morning, Nov. 5 th, and was attended with more or less serious consequences. At the Hon. Niel Black’s wool shed, near Tevang, whilst the shearers were away at the lightning struck the shed, and killed five or six sheep. It also marked one on the side as if branded with the letter V, but without injury to that particular sheep, and twisted wires and splintered posts belonging to the shed. There was also another accident at Eddington, not many miles distant, at or about the same time. A horse belonging to a shearer named McGill was killed by lightning. The electric fluid apparently first struck the horse on the point of the withers, it then div'chd into five distinct streams, making for the ground by the nearest conductors, which m this instance, were the logs and nock of the animal. From the point of the withers there arc five clearly defined tracks, as if traced with a red hot wire, radiating one towards each leg, and fifth to the back, and reaching the ground by these as conductors. The horse must have been grazing at the time, for one track of tho electric fluid can be traced from the first point of contact down the shoulder , along the windpipe, to the extreme point of the lip, and into the ground, leaving a hole 26in. deep as an evidence. Where’ the lightning entered the ground, from' the near fore log there is also a hole 2Gih.
deep. There ale in all 0 boles in the ground, but noiie of any depth, except the two above-mentioned. Where the electric fluid struck the ground, it seemed to have made a hole of more or less depth ; and also two furrows about half an inch deep, and from Ift to 3ft in length, generally at right angles to each other. The horse was killed instantam ously,probably by the nervous shock, as there is not the slightest evidence of a wound or a struggl
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Bibliographic details
Patea Mail, Volume I, Issue 68, 11 December 1875, Page 3
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357STRANGE EFFECT OF LIGHTNING. Patea Mail, Volume I, Issue 68, 11 December 1875, Page 3
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