And yet even nowadays, I believe, there are a large number of well-informed people, who have passed the sixth standard, taken prizes at the Oxford16 Local, and attended the dullest lectures of the Society for University Extension, but who nevertheless in some vague and dim corner of their consciousness retain somehow a lingering faith in the existence of thunderbolts. They have not yet grasped in its entirety the simple truth that lightning is the reality of which thunderbolts are the mythical17, or fanciful, or verbal representation. We all of us know now that lightning is a mere flash of electric light and heat; that it has no solid existence or core of any sort; in short, that it is dynamical rather than material, a state or movement rather than a body or thing. To be sure, local newspapers still talk with much show of learning about 'the electric fluid' which did such remarkable18 damage last week upon the slated19 steeple of Peddlington Torpida Church; but the well-crammed schoolboy of the present day has long since learned that the electric fluid is an exploded fallacy, and that the lightning which pulled the ten slates20 off the steeple in question was nothing more in its real nature than a very big immaterial spark. However, the word thunderbolt has survived to us from the days when people still believed that the thing which did the damage during a thunderstorm was really and truly a gigantic white-hot bolt or arrow; and, as there is a natural tendency in human nature to fit an existence to every word, people even now continue to imagine that there must be actually something or other somewhere called a thunderbolt. They don't figure this thing to themselves as being identical with the lightning; on the contrary, they seem to regard it as something infinitely rarer, more terrible, and more mystic; but they firmly hold that thunderbolts do exist in real life, and even sometimes assert that they themselves have positively21 seen them.
But, if seeing is believing, it is equally true, as all who have looked into the phenomena22 of spiritualism and 'psychical24 research' (modern English for ghost-hunting) know too well, that believing is seeing also. The origin of the faith in thunderbolts must be looked for (like the origin of the faith in ghosts and 'psychical phenomena') far back in the history of our race. The noble savage25, at that early period when wild in woods he ran, naturally noticed the existence of thunder and lightning, because thunder and lightning are things that forcibly obtrude26 themselves upon the attention of the observer, however little he may by nature be scientifically inclined. Indeed, the noble savage, sleeping naked on the bare ground, in tropical countries where thunder occurs almost every night on an average, was sure to be pretty often awaked from his peaceful slumbers27 by the torrents28 of rain that habitually29 accompany thunderstorms in the happy realms of everlasting30 dog-days. Primitive31 man was thereupon compelled to do a little philosophising on his own account as to the cause and origin of the rumbling32 and flashing which he saw so constantly around him. Naturally enough, he concluded that the sound must be the voice of somebody; and that the fiery33 shaft34, whose effects he sometimes noted35 upon trees, animals, and his fellow-man, must be the somebody's arrow. It is immaterial from this point of view whether, as the scientific anthropologists hold, he was led to his conception of these supernatural personages from his prior belief in ghosts and spirits, or whether, as Professor Max Müller will have it, he felt a deep yearning36 in his primitive savage breast toward the Infinite and the Unknowable (which he would doubtless have spelt, like the Professor, with a capital initial, had he been acquainted with the intricacies of the yet uninvented alphabet); but this much at least is pretty certain, that he looked upon the thunder and the lightning as in some sense the voice and the arrows of an a?rial god.
Now, this idea about the arrows is itself very significant of the mental attitude of primitive man, and of the way that mental attitude has coloured all subsequent thinking and superstition37 upon this very subject. Curiously38 enough, to the present day the conception of the thunderbolt is essentially39 one of a bolt—that is to say, an arrow, or at least an arrowhead. All existing thunderbolts (and there are plenty of them lying about casually40 in country houses and local museums) are more or less arrow-like in shape and appearance; some of them, indeed, as we shall see by-and-by, are the actual stone arrowheads of primitive man himself in person. Of course the noble savage was himself in the constant habit of shooting at animals and enemies with a bow and arrow. When, then, he tried to figure to himself the angry god, seated in the storm-clouds, who spoke41 with such a loud rumbling voice, and killed those who displeased42 him with his fiery darts44, he naturally thought of him as using in his cloudy home the familiar bow and arrow of this nether45 planet. To us nowadays, if we were to begin forming the idea for ourselves all over again de novo, it would be far more natural to think of the thunder as the noise of a big gun, of the lightning as the flash of the powder, and of the supposed 'bolt' as a shell or bullet. There is really a ridiculous resemblance between a thunderstorm and a discharge of artillery46. But the old conception derived47 from so many generations of primitive men has held its own against such mere modern devices as gunpowder48 and rifle balls; and none of the objects commonly shown as thunderbolts are ever round: they are distinguished49, whatever their origin, by the common peculiarity50 that they more or less closely resemble a dart43 or arrowhead.
Let us begin, then, by clearly disembarrassing our minds of any lingering belief in the existence of thunderbolts. There are absolutely no such things known to science. The two real phenomena that underlie51 the fable52 are simply thunder and lightning. A thunderstorm is merely a series of electrical discharges between one cloud and another, or between clouds and the earth; and these discharges manifest themselves to our senses under two forms—to the eye as lightning, to the ear as thunder. All that passes in each case is a huge spark—a commotion53, not a material object. It is in principle just like the spark from an electrical machine; but while the most powerful machine of human construction will only send a spark for three feet, the enormous electrical apparatus provided for us by nature will send one for four, five, or even ten miles. Though lightning when it touches the earth always seems to us to come from the clouds to the ground, it is by no means certain that the real course may not at least occasionally be in the opposite direction. All we know is that sometimes there is an instantaneous discharge between one cloud and another, and sometimes an instantaneous discharge between a cloud and the earth.
But this idea of a mere passage of highly concentrated energy from one point to another was far too abstract, of course, for primitive man, and is far too abstract even now for nine out of ten of our fellow-creatures. Those who don't still believe in the bodily thunderbolt, a fearsome a?rial weapon which buries itself deep in the bosom54 of the earth, look upon lightning as at least an embodiment of the electric fluid, a long spout55 or line of molten fire, which is usually conceived of as striking the ground and then proceeding56 to hide itself under the roots of a tree or beneath the foundations of a tottering57 house. Primitive man naturally took to the grosser and more material conception. He figured to himself the thunderbolt as a barbed arrowhead; and the forked zigzag59 character of the visible flash, as it darts rapidly from point to point, seemed almost inevitably60 to suggest to him the barbs61, as one sees them represented on all the Greek and Roman gems62, in the red right hand of the angry Jupiter.
The thunderbolt being thus an accepted fact, it followed naturally that whenever any dart-like object of unknown origin was dug up out of the ground, it was at once set down as being a thunderbolt; and, on the other hand, the frequent occurrence of such dart-like objects, precisely63 where one might expect to find them in accordance with the theory, necessarily strengthened the belief itself. So commonly are thunderbolts picked up to the present day that to disbelieve in them seems to many country people a piece of ridiculous and stubborn scepticism. Why, they've ploughed up dozens of them themselves in their time, and just about the very place where the thunderbolt struck the old elm-tree two years ago, too.
The most favourite form of thunderbolt is the polished stone hatchet64 or 'celt' of the newer stone age men. I have never heard the very rude chipped and unpolished axes of the older drift men or cave men described as thunderbolts: they are too rough and shapeless ever to attract attention from any except professed66 arch?ologists. Indeed, the wicked have been known to scoff67 at them freely as mere accidental lumps of broken flint, and to deride68 the notion of their being due in any way to deliberate human handicraft. These are the sort of people who would regard a grand piano as a fortuitous concourse of atoms. But the shapely stone hatchet of the later neolithic69 farmer and herdsman is usually a beautifully polished wedge-shaped piece of solid greenstone; and its edge has been ground to such a delicate smoothness that it seems rather like a bit of nature's exquisite70 workmanship than a simple relic71 of prehistoric72 man. There is something very fascinating about the na?f belief that the neolithic axe65 is a genuine unadulterated thunderbolt. You dig it up in the ground exactly where you would expect a thunderbolt (if there were such things) to be. It is heavy, smooth, well shaped, and neatly73 pointed74 at one end. If it could really descend75 in a red-hot state from the depths of the sky, launched forth76 like a cannon-ball by some fierce discharge of heavenly artillery, it would certainly prove a very formidable weapon indeed; and one could easily imagine it scoring the bark of some aged77 oak, or tearing off the tiles from a projecting turret78, exactly as the lightning is so well known to do in this prosaic79 workaday world of ours. In short, there is really nothing on earth against the theory of the stone axe being a true thunderbolt, except the fact that it unfortunately happens to be a neolithic hatchet.
But the course of reasoning by which we discover the true nature of the stone axe is not one that would in any case appeal strongly to the fancy or the intelligence of the British farmer. It is no use telling him that whenever one opens a barrow of the stone age one is pretty sure to find a neolithic axe and a few broken pieces of pottery80 beside the mouldering81 skeleton of the old nameless chief who lies there buried. The British farmer will doubtless stolidly82 retort that thunderbolts often strike the tops of hills, which are just the places where barrows and tumuli (tumps, he calls them) most do congregate83; and that as to the skeleton, isn't it just as likely that the man was killed by the thunderbolt as that the thunderbolt was made by a man? Ay, and a sight likelier, too.
All the world over, this simple and easy belief, that the buried stone axe is a thunderbolt, exists among Europeans and savages84 alike. In the West of England, the labourers will tell you that the thunder-axes they dig up fell from the sky. In Brittany, says Mr. Tylor, the old man who mends umbrellas at Carnac, beside the mysterious stone avenues of that great French Stonehenge, inquires on his rounds for pierres de tonnerre, which of course are found with suspicious frequency in the immediate85 neighbourhood of prehistoric remains86. In the Chinese Encyclop?dia we are told that the 'lightning stones' have sometimes the shape of a hatchet, sometimes that of a knife, and sometimes that of a mallet87. And then, by a curious misapprehension, the sapient89 author of that work goes on to observe that these lightning stones are used by the wandering Mongols instead of copper90 and steel. It never seems to have struck his celestial91 intelligence that the Mongols made the lightning stones instead of digging them up out of the earth. So deeply had the idea of the thunderbolt buried itself in the recesses92 of his soul, that though a neighbouring people were still actually manufacturing stone axes almost under his very eyes, he reversed mentally the entire process, and supposed they dug up the thunderbolts which he saw them using, and employed them as common hatchets93. This is one of the finest instances on record of the popular figure which grammarians call the hysteron proteron, and ordinary folk describe as putting the cart before the horse. Just so, while in some parts of Brazil the Indians are still laboriously94 polishing their stone hatchets, in other parts the planters are digging up the precisely similar stone hatchets of earlier generations, and religiously preserving them in their houses as undoubted thunderbolts. I have myself had pressed upon my attention as genuine lightning stones, in the West Indies, the exquisitely95 polished greenstone tomahawks of the old Carib marauders. But then, in this matter, I am pretty much in the position of that philosophic96 sceptic who, when he was asked by a lady whether he believed in ghosts, answered wisely, 'No, madam, I have seen by far too many of them.'
One of the finest accounts ever given of the nature of thunderbolts is that mentioned by Adrianus Tollius in his edition of 'Boethius on Gems.' He gives illustrations of some neolithic axes and hammers, and then proceeds to state that in the opinion of philosophers they are generated in the sky by a fulgureous exhalation (whatever that may look like) conglobed in a cloud by a circumfixed humour, and baked hard, as it were, by intense heat. The weapon, it seems, then becomes pointed by the damp mixed with it flying from the dry part, and leaving the other end denser98; while the exhalations press it so hard that it breaks out through the cloud, and makes thunder and lightning. A very lucid99 explanation certainly, but rendered a little difficult of apprehension88 by the effort necessary for realising in a mental picture the conglobation of a fulgureous exhalation by a circumfixed humour.
One would like to see a drawing of the process, though the sketch100 would probably much resemble the picture of a muchness, so admirably described by the mock turtle. The excellent Tollius himself, however, while demurring101 on the whole to this hypothesis of the philosophers, bases his objection mainly on the ground that, if this were so, then it is odd the thunderbolts are not round, but wedge-shaped, and that they have holes in them, and those holes not equal throughout, but widest at the ends. As a matter of fact, Tollius has here hit the right nail on the head quite accidentally; for the holes are really there, of course, to receive the haft of the axe or hammer. But if they were truly thunderbolts, and if the bolts were shafted102, then the holes would have been lengthwise, as in an arrowhead, not crosswise, as in an axe or hammer. Which is a complete reductio ad absurdum of the philosophic opinion.
Some of the cerauni?, says Pliny, are like hatchets. He would have been nearer the mark if he had said 'are hatchets' outright103. But this aper?u, which was to Pliny merely a stray suggestion, became to the northern peoples a firm article of belief, and caused them to represent to themselves their god Thor or Thunor as armed, not with a bolt, but with an axe or hammer. Etymologically104 Thor, Thunor, and thunder are the self-same word; but while the southern races looked upon Zeus or Indra as wielding105 his forked darts in his red right hand, the northern races looked upon the Thunder-god as hurling106 down an angry hammer from his seat in the clouds. There can be but little doubt that the very notion of Thor's hammer itself was derived from the shape of the supposed thunderbolt, which the Scandinavians and Teutons rightly saw at once to be an axe or mallet, not an arrow-head. The 'fiery axe' of Thunor is a common metaphor107 in Anglo-Saxon poetry. Thus, Thor's hammer is itself merely the picture which our northern ancestors formed to themselves, by compounding the idea of thunder and lightning with the idea of the polished stone hatchets they dug up among the fields and meadows.
Flint arrowheads of the stone age are less often taken for thunderbolts, no doubt because they are so much smaller that they look quite too insignificant108 for the weapons of an angry god. They are more frequently described as fairy-darts or fairy-bolts. Still, I have known even arrow-heads regarded as thunderbolts, and preserved superstitiously109 under that belief. In Finland, stone arrows are universally so viewed; and the rainbow is looked upon as the bow of Tiermes, the thunder-god, who shoots with it the guilty sorcerers.
But why should thunderbolts, whether stone axes or flint arrowheads, be preserved, not merely as curiosities, but from motives111 of superstition? The reason is a simple one. Everybody knows that in all magical ceremonies it is necessary to have something belonging to the person you wish to conjure112 against, in order to make your spells effectual. A bone, be it but a joint113 of the little finger, is sufficient to raise the ghost to which it once belonged; cuttings of hair or clippings of nails are enough to put their owner magically in your power; and that is the reason why, if you are a prudent114 person, you will always burn all such off-castings of your body, lest haply an enemy should get hold of them, and cast the evil eye upon you with their potent7 aid. In the same way, if you can lay hands upon anything that once belonged to an elf, such as a fairy-bolt or flint arrowhead, you can get its former possessor to do anything you wish by simply rubbing it and calling upon him to appear. This is the secret of half the charms and amulets115 in existence, most of which are either real old arrowheads, or carnelians cut in the same shape, which has now mostly degenerated116 from the barb58 to the conventional heart, and been mistakenly associated with the idea of love. This is the secret, too, of all the rings, lamps, gems, and boxes, possession of which gives a man power over fairies, spirits, gnomes117, and genii. All magic proceeds upon the prime belief that you must possess something belonging to the person you wish to control, constrain118, or injure. And, failing anything else, you must at least have a wax image of him, which you call by his name, and use as his substitute in your incantations.
On this primitive principle, possession of a thunderbolt gives you some sort of hold, as it were, over the thunder-god himself in person. If you keep a thunderbolt in your house it will never be struck by lightning. In Shetland, stone axes are religiously preserved in every cottage as a cheap and simple substitute for lightning-rods. In Cornwall, the stone hatchets and arrowheads not only guard the house from thunder, but also act as magical barometers119, changing colour with the changes of the weather, as if in sympathy with the temper of the thunder-god. In Germany, the house where a thunderbolt is kept is safe from the storm; and the bolt itself begins to sweat on the approach of lightning-clouds. Nay120, so potent is the protection afforded by a thunderbolt that where the lightning has once struck it never strikes again; the bolt already buried in the soil seems to preserve the surrounding place from the anger of the deity121. Old and pagan in their nature as are these beliefs, they yet survive so thoroughly122 into Christian123 times that I have seen a stone hatchet built into the steeple of a church to protect it from lightning. Indeed, steeples have always of course attracted the electric discharge to a singular degree by their height and tapering124 form, especially before the introduction of lighting-rods; and it was a sore trial of faith to medi?val reasoners to understand why heaven should hurl13 its angry darts so often against the towers of its very own churches. In the Abruzzi the flint axe has actually been Christianised into St. Paul's arrows—saetti de San Paolo. Families hand down the miraculous126 stones from father to son as a precious legacy127; and mothers hang them on their children's necks side by side with medals of saints and madonnas, which themselves are hardly so highly prized as the stones that fall from heaven.
Another and very different form of thunderbolt is the belemnite, a common English fossil often preserved in houses in the west country with the same superstitious110 reverence128 as the neolithic hatchets. The very form of the belemnite at once suggests the notion of a dart or lance-head, which has gained for it its scientific name. At the present day, when all our girls go to Girton and enter for the classical tripos, I need hardly translate the word belemnite 'for the benefit of the ladies,' as people used to do in the dark and unemancipated eighteenth century; but as our boys have left off learning Greek just as their sisters are beginning to act the 'Antigone' at private theatricals129, I may perhaps be pardoned if I explain, 'for the benefit of the gentlemen,' that the word is practically equivalent to javelin-fossil. The belemnites are the internal shells of a sort of cuttle-fish which swam about in enormous numbers in the seas whose sediment130 forms our modern lias, oolite, and gault. A great many different species are known and have acquired charming names in very doubtful Attic131 at the hands of profoundly learned geological investigators132, but almost all are equally good representatives of the mythical thunderbolt. The finest specimens133 are long, thick, cylindrical135, and gradually tapering, with a hole at one end as if on purpose to receive the shaft. Sometimes they have petrified136 into iron pyrites or copper compounds, shining like gold, and then they make very noble thunderbolts indeed, heavy as lead, and capable of doing profound mischief137 if properly directed. At other times they have crystallised in transparent138 spar, and then they form very beautiful objects, as smooth and polished as the best lapidary139 could possibly make them. Belemnites are generally found in immense numbers together, especially in the marlstone quarries140 of the Midlands, and in the lias cliffs of Dorsetshire. Yet the quarrymen who find them never seem to have their faith shaken in the least by the enormous quantities of thunderbolts that would appear to have struck a single spot with such extraordinary frequency This little fact also tells rather hardly against the theory that the lightning never falls twice upon the same place.
Only the largest and heaviest belemnites are known as thunder stones; the smaller ones are more commonly described as agate141 pencils. In Shakespeare's country their connection with thunder is well known, so that in all probability a belemnite is the original of the beautiful lines in 'Cymbeline':—
Fear no more the lightning flash, Nor the all-dreaded thunder stone,
where the distinction between the lightning and the thunderbolt is particularly well indicated. In every part of Europe belemnites and stone hatchets are alike regarded as thunderbolts; so that we have the curious result that people confuse under a single name a natural fossil of immense antiquity142 and a human product of comparatively recent but still prehistoric date. Indeed, I have had two thunderbolts shown me at once, one of which was a large belemnite, and the other a modern Indian tomahawk. Curiously enough, English sailors still call the nearest surviving relatives of the belemnites, the squids or calamaries of the Atlantic, by the appropriate name of sea-arrows.
Many other natural or artificial objects have added their tittle to the belief in thunderbolts. In the Himalayas, for example, where awful thunderstorms are always occurring as common objects of the country, the torrents which follow them tear out of the loose soil fossil bones and tusks143 and teeth, which are universally looked upon as lightning-stones. The nodules of pyrites, often picked up on beaches, with their false appearance of having been melted by intense heat, pass muster144 easily with children and sailor folk for the genuine thunderbolts. But the grand upholder of the belief, the one true undeniable reality which has kept alive the thunderbolt even in a wicked and sceptical age, is, beyond all question, the occasional falling of meteoric145 stones. Your meteor is an incontrovertible fact; there is no getting over him; in the British Museum itself you will find him duly classified and labelled and catalogued. Here, surely, we have the ultimate substratum of the thunderbolt myth. To be sure, meteors have no kind of natural connection with thunderstorms; they may fall anywhere and at any time; but to object thus is to be hypercritical. A stone that falls from heaven, no matter how or when, is quite good enough to be considered as a thunderbolt.
Meteors, indeed, might very easily be confounded with lightning, especially by people who already have the full-blown conception of a thunderbolt floating about vaguely146 in their brains. The meteor leaps upon the earth suddenly with a rushing noise; it is usually red-hot when it falls, by friction147 against the air; it is mostly composed of native iron and other heavy metallic148 bodies; and it does its best to bury itself in the ground in the most orthodox and respectable manner. The man who sees this parlous149 monster come whizzing through the clouds from planetary space, making a fiery track like a great dragon as it moves rapidly across the sky, and finally ploughing its way into the earth in his own back garden, may well be excused for regarding it as a fine specimen134 of the true antique thunderbolt. The same virtues150 which belong to the buried stone are in some other places claimed for meteoric iron, small pieces of which are worn as charms, specially125 useful in protecting the wearer against thunder, lightning, and evil incantations. In many cases miraculous images have been hewn out of the stones that have fallen from heaven; and in others the meteorite151 itself is carefully preserved or worshipped as the actual representative of god or goddess, saint or madonna. The image that fell down from Jupiter may itself have been a mass of meteoric iron.
Both meteorites152 and stone hatchets, as well as all other forms of thunderbolt, are in excellent repute as amulets, not only against lightning, but against the evil eye generally. In Italy they protect the owner from thunder, epidemics153, and cattle disease, the last two of which are well known to be caused by witchcraft154; while Prospero in the 'Tempest' is a surviving proof how thunderstorms, too, can be magically produced. The tongues of sheep-bells ought to be made of meteoric iron or of elf-bolts, in order to insure the animals against foot-and-mouth disease or death by storm. Built into walls or placed on the threshold of stables, thunderbolts are capital preventives of fire or other damage, though not perhaps in this respect quite equal to a rusty155 horseshoe from a prehistoric battlefield. Thrown into a well they purify the water; and boiled in the drink of diseased sheep they render a cure positively certain. In Cornwall thunderbolts are a sovereign remedy for rheumatism156; and in the popular pharmacop?ia of Ireland they have been employed with success for ophthalmia, pleurisy, and many other painful diseases. If finely powdered and swallowed piecemeal157, they render the person who swallows them invulnerable for the rest of his lifetime. But they cannot conscientiously158 be recommended for dyspepsia and other forms of indigestion.
As if on purpose to confuse our already very vague ideas about thunderbolts, there is one special kind of lightning which really seems intentionally159 to simulate a meteorite, and that is the kind known as fireballs or (more scientifically) globular lightning. A fireball generally appears as a sphere of light, sometimes only as big as a Dutch cheese, sometimes as large as three feet in diameter. It moves along very slowly and demurely160 through the air, remaining visible for a whole minute or two together; and in the end it generally bursts up with great violence, as if it were a London railway station being experimented upon by Irish patriots161. At Milan one day a fireball of this description walked down one of the streets so slowly that a small crowd walked after it admiringly, to see where it was going. It made straight for a church steeple, after the common but sacrilegious fashion of all lightning, struck the gilded162 cross on the topmost pinnacle163, and then immediately vanished, like a Virgilian apparition164, into thin air.
A few years ago, too, Dr. Tripe165 was watching a very severe thunderstorm, when he saw a fire-ball come quietly gliding166 up to him, apparently167 rising from the earth rather than falling towards it. Instead of running away, like a practical man, the intrepid168 doctor held his ground quietly and observed the fiery monster with scientific nonchalance169. After continuing its course for some time in a peaceful and regular fashion, however, without attempting to assault him, it finally darted170 off at a tangent in another direction, and turned apparently into forked lightning. A fire-ball, noticed among the Glendowan Mountains in Donegal, behaved even more eccentrically, as might be expected from its Irish antecedents. It first skirted the earth in a leisurely171 way for several hundred yards like a cannon-ball; then it struck the ground, ricochetted, and once more bounded along for another short spell; after which it disappeared in the boggy172 soil, as if it were completely finished and done for. But in another moment it rose again, nothing daunted173, with Celtic irrepressibility, several yards away, pursued its ghostly course across a running stream (which shows, at least, there could have been no witchcraft in it), and finally ran to earth for good in the opposite bank, leaving a round hole in the sloping peat at the spot where it buried itself. Where it first struck, it cut up the peat as if with a knife, and made a broad deep trench174 which remained afterwards as a witness of its eccentric conduct. If the person who observed it had been of a superstitious turn of mind we should have had here one of the finest and most terrifying ghost stories on the entire record, which would have made an exceptionally splendid show in the 'Transactions of the Society for Psychical Research.' Unfortunately, however, he was only a man of science, ungifted with the precious dower of poetical175 imagination; so he stupidly called it a remarkable fire-ball, measured the ground carefully like a common engineer, and sent an account of the phenomenon to that far more prosaic periodical, the 'Quarterly Journal of the Meteorological Society.' Another splendid apparition thrown away recklessly, for ever!
There is a curious form of electrical discharge, somewhat similar to the fire-ball but on a smaller scale, which may be regarded as the exact opposite of the thunderbolt, inasmuch as it is always quite harmless. This is St. Elmo's fire, a brush of lambent light, which plays around the masts of ships and the tops of trees, when clouds are low and tension great. It is, in fact, the equivalent in nature of the brush discharge from an electric machine. The Greeks and Romans looked upon this lambent display as a sign of the presence of Castor and Pollux, 'fratres Helen?, lucida sidera,' and held that its appearance was an omen23 of safety, as everybody who has read the 'Lays of Ancient Rome' must surely remember. The modern name, St. Elmo's fire, is itself a curiously twisted and perversely176 Christianised reminiscence of the great twin brethren; for St. Elmo is merely a corruption177 of Helena, made masculine and canonised by the grateful sailors. It was as Helen's brothers that they best knew the Dioscuri in the good old days of the upper empire; and when the new religion forbade them any longer to worship those vain heathen deities178, they managed to hand over the flames at the masthead to an imaginary St. Elmo, whose protection stood them in just as good stead as that of the original alternate immortals179.
Finally, the effects of lightning itself are sometimes such as to produce upon the mind of an impartial180 but unscientific beholder181 the firm idea that a bodily thunderbolt must necessarily have descended182 from heaven. In sand or rock, where lightning has struck, it often forms long hollow tubes, known to the calmly discriminating183 geological intelligence as fulgurites, and looking for all the world like gigantic drills such as quarrymen make for putting in a blast. They are produced, of course, by the melting of the rock under the terrific heat of the electric spark; and they grow narrower and narrower as they descend till they finally disappear. But to a casual observer, they irresistibly184 suggest the notion that a material weapon has struck the ground, and buried itself at the bottom of the hole. The summit of Little Ararat, that weather-beaten and many-fabled peak (where an enterprising journalist not long ago discovered the remains of Noah's Ark), has been riddled185 through and through by frequent lightnings, till the rock is now a mere honeycombed mass of drills and tubes, like an old target at the end of a long day's constant rifle practice. Pieces of the red trachyte from the summit, a foot long, have been brought to Europe, perforated all over with these natural bullet marks, each of them lined with black glass, due to the fusion186 of the rock by the passage of the spark. Specimens of such thunder-drilled rock may be seen in most geological museums. On some which Humboldt collected from a peak in Mexico, the fused slag187 from the wall of the tube has overflowed188 on to the surrounding surface, thus conclusively190 proving (if proof were necessary) that the holes are due to melting heat alone, and not to the passage of any solid thunderbolt.
But it was the introduction and general employment of lightning-rods that dealt a final deathblow to the thunderbolt theory. A lightning-conductor consists essentially of a long piece of metal, pointed at the end whose business it is, not so much (as most people imagine) to carry off the flash of lightning harmlessly, should it happen to strike the house to which the conductor is attached, but rather to prevent the occurrence of a flash at all, by gradually and gently drawing off the electricity as fast as it gathers before it has had time to collect in sufficient force for a destructive discharge. It resembles in effect an overflow189 pipe which drains off the surplus water of a pond as soon as it runs in, in such a manner as to prevent the possibility of an inundation191, which might occur if the water were allowed to collect in force behind a dam or embankment. It is a flood-gate, not a moat: it carries away the electricity of the air quietly to the ground, without allowing it to gather in sufficient amount to produce a flash of lightning. It might thus be better called a lightning-preventer than a lightning-conductor: it conducts electricity, but it prevents lightning. At first, all lightning-rods used to be made with knobs on the top, and then the electricity used to collect at the surface until the electric force was sufficient to cause a spark. In those happy days, you had the pleasure of seeing that the lightning was actually being drawn192 off from your neighbourhood piecemeal. Knobs, it was held, must be the best things, because you could incontestably see the sparks striking them with your own eyes. But as time went on, electricians discovered that if you fixed97 a fine metal point to the conductor of an electric machine it was impossible to get up any appreciable193 charge because the electricity kept always leaking out by means of the point. Then it was seen that if you made your lightning-rods pointed at the end, you would be able in the same way to dissipate your electricity before it ever had time to come to a head in the shape of lightning. From that moment the thunderbolt was safely dead and buried. It was urged, indeed, that the attempt thus to rob Heaven of its thunders was wicked and impious; but the common-sense of mankind refused to believe that absolute omnipotence194 could be sensibly defied by twenty yards of cylindrical iron tubing. Thenceforth the thunderbolt ceased to exist, save in poetry, country houses, and the most rural circles; even the electric fluid was generally relegated195 to the provincial196 press, where it still keeps company harmoniously197 with caloric, the devouring198 element, nature's abhorrence199 of a vacuum, and many other like philosophical200 fossils: while lightning itself, shorn of its former glories, could no longer wage impious war against cathedral towers, but was compelled to restrict itself to blasting a solitary201 rider now and again in the open fields, or drilling more holes in the already crumbling202 summit of Mount Ararat. Yet it will be a thousand years more, in all probability, before the last thunderbolt ceases to be shown as a curiosity here and there to marvelling203 visitors, and takes its proper place in some village museum as a belemnite, a meteoric stone, or a polished axe-head of our neolithic ancestors. Even then, no doubt, the original bolt will still survive as a recognised property in the stock-in-trade of every well-equipped poet.
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1
nonentity
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| n.无足轻重的人 | |
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2
vampires
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| n.吸血鬼( vampire的名词复数 )；吸血蝠；高利贷者；（舞台上的）活板门 | |
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3
doughty
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| adj.勇猛的，坚强的 | |
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4
weirdness
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| n.古怪，离奇，不可思议 | |
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5
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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6
density
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| n.密集，密度，浓度 | |
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7
potent
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| adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的 | |
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8
partially
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| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
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9
apparatus
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| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
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10
inconveniently
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| ad.不方便地 | |
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11
horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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12
interspersed
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| adj.[医]散开的；点缀的v.intersperse的过去式和过去分词 | |
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13
hurl
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| vt.猛投，力掷，声叫骂 | |
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14
hurls
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| v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的第三人称单数 )；大声叫骂 | |
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15
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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16
Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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17
mythical
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| adj.神话的；虚构的；想像的 | |
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18
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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19
slated
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| 用石板瓦盖( slate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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20
slates
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| （旧时学生用以写字的）石板( slate的名词复数 )； 板岩； 石板瓦； 石板色 | |
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21
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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22
phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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23
omen
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| n.征兆，预兆；vt.预示 | |
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24
psychical
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| adj.有关特异功能现象的；有关特异功能官能的；灵魂的；心灵的 | |
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25
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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26
obtrude
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| v.闯入；侵入；打扰 | |
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27
slumbers
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| 睡眠，安眠( slumber的名词复数 ) | |
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28
torrents
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| n.倾注；奔流( torrent的名词复数 )；急流；爆发；连续不断 | |
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29
habitually
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| ad.习惯地，通常地 | |
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30
everlasting
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| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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31
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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32
rumbling
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| n. 隆隆声, 辘辘声 adj. 隆隆响的 动词rumble的现在分词 | |
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33
fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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34
shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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35
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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36
yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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37
superstition
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| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
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38
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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39
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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40
casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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41
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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42
displeased
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| a.不快的 | |
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43
dart
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| v.猛冲，投掷；n.飞镖，猛冲 | |
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44
darts
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| n.掷飞镖游戏；飞镖( dart的名词复数 )；急驰，飞奔v.投掷，投射( dart的第三人称单数 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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45
nether
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| adj.下部的，下面的；n.阴间；下层社会 | |
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46
artillery
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| n.(军)火炮，大炮；炮兵(部队) | |
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47
derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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48
gunpowder
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| n.火药 | |
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49
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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50
peculiarity
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| n.独特性，特色；特殊的东西；怪癖 | |
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51
underlie
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| v.位于...之下，成为...的基础 | |
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52
fable
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| n.寓言；童话；神话 | |
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53
commotion
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| n.骚动，动乱 | |
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54
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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55
spout
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| v.喷出，涌出；滔滔不绝地讲；n.喷管；水柱 | |
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56
proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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57
tottering
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| adj.蹒跚的，动摇的v.走得或动得不稳( totter的现在分词 )；踉跄；蹒跚；摇摇欲坠 | |
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58
barb
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| n.（鱼钩等的）倒钩，倒刺 | |
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59
zigzag
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| n.曲折，之字形；adj.曲折的，锯齿形的；adv.曲折地，成锯齿形地；vt.使曲折；vi.曲折前行 | |
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60
inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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61
barbs
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| n.（箭头、鱼钩等的）倒钩( barb的名词复数 )；带刺的话；毕露的锋芒；钩状毛 | |
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62
gems
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| growth； economy； management； and customer satisfaction 增长 | |
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63
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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64
hatchet
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| n.短柄小斧；v.扼杀 | |
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65
axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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66
professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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67
scoff
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| n.嘲笑，笑柄，愚弄；v.嘲笑，嘲弄，愚弄，狼吞虎咽 | |
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68
deride
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| v.嘲弄，愚弄 | |
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69
neolithic
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| adj.新石器时代的 | |
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70
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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71
relic
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| n.神圣的遗物，遗迹，纪念物 | |
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72
prehistoric
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| adj.（有记载的）历史以前的，史前的，古老的 | |
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73
neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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74
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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75
descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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76
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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77
aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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78
turret
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| n.塔楼，角塔 | |
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79
prosaic
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| adj.单调的，无趣的 | |
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80
pottery
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| n.陶器，陶器场 | |
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81
mouldering
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| v.腐朽( moulder的现在分词 )；腐烂，崩塌 | |
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82
stolidly
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| adv.迟钝地，神经麻木地 | |
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83
congregate
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| v.(使)集合，聚集 | |
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84
savages
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| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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85
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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86
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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87
mallet
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| n.槌棒 | |
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88
apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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sapient
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| adj.有见识的，有智慧的 | |
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90
copper
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| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
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91
celestial
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| adj.天体的；天上的 | |
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92
recesses
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| n.壁凹( recess的名词复数 )；（工作或业务活动的）中止或暂停期间；学校的课间休息；某物内部的凹形空间v.把某物放在墙壁的凹处( recess的第三人称单数 )；将（墙）做成凹形，在（墙）上做壁龛；休息，休会，休庭 | |
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93
hatchets
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| n.短柄小斧( hatchet的名词复数 )；恶毒攻击；诽谤；休战 | |
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94
laboriously
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| adv.艰苦地；费力地；辛勤地；（文体等）佶屈聱牙地 | |
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95
exquisitely
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| adv.精致地；强烈地；剧烈地；异常地 | |
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96
philosophic
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| adj.哲学的，贤明的 | |
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97
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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98
denser
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| adj. 不易看透的, 密集的, 浓厚的, 愚钝的 | |
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99
lucid
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| adj.明白易懂的，清晰的，头脑清楚的 | |
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100
sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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101
demurring
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| v.表示异议，反对( demur的现在分词 ) | |
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102
shafted
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| 有箭杆的，有柄的，有羽轴的 | |
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103
outright
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| adv.坦率地；彻底地；立即；adj.无疑的；彻底的 | |
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104
etymologically
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| adv.语源上 | |
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105
wielding
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| 手持着使用（武器、工具等）( wield的现在分词 )； 具有； 运用（权力）； 施加（影响） | |
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106
hurling
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| n.爱尔兰式曲棍球v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的现在分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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107
metaphor
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| n.隐喻，暗喻 | |
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108
insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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109
superstitiously
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| 被邪教所支配 | |
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110
superstitious
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| adj.迷信的 | |
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111
motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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112
conjure
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| v.恳求，祈求；变魔术，变戏法 | |
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113
joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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114
prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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115
amulets
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| n.护身符( amulet的名词复数 ) | |
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116
degenerated
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| 衰退，堕落，退化( degenerate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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117
gnomes
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| n.矮子( gnome的名词复数 )；侏儒；（尤指金融市场上搞投机的）银行家；守护神 | |
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118
constrain
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| vt.限制，约束；克制，抑制 | |
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119
barometers
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| 气压计，晴雨表( barometer的名词复数 ) | |
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120
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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121
deity
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| n.神，神性；被奉若神明的人(或物) | |
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122
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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123
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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124
tapering
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| adj.尖端细的 | |
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125
specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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126
miraculous
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| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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127
legacy
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| n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西 | |
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128
reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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129
theatricals
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| n.（业余性的）戏剧演出，舞台表演艺术；职业演员；戏剧的( theatrical的名词复数 )；剧场的；炫耀的；戏剧性的 | |
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130
sediment
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| n.沉淀，沉渣，沉积(物) | |
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131
attic
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| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
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132
investigators
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| n.调查者，审查者( investigator的名词复数 ) | |
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133
specimens
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| n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人 | |
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134
specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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135
cylindrical
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| adj.圆筒形的 | |
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136
petrified
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| adj.惊呆的；目瞪口呆的v.使吓呆，使惊呆；变僵硬；使石化(petrify的过去式和过去分词) | |
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137
mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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138
transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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139
lapidary
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| n.宝石匠；adj.宝石的；简洁优雅的 | |
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quarries
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| n.（采）石场( quarry的名词复数 )；猎物（指鸟，兽等）；方形石；（格窗等的）方形玻璃v.从采石场采得( quarry的第三人称单数 )；从（书本等中）努力发掘（资料等）；在采石场采石 | |
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141
agate
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| n.玛瑙 | |
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142
antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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143
tusks
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| n.（象等动物的）长牙( tusk的名词复数 )；獠牙；尖形物；尖头 | |
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144
muster
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| v.集合，收集，鼓起，激起；n.集合，检阅，集合人员，点名册 | |
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145
meteoric
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| adj.流星的，转瞬即逝的，突然的 | |
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146
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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147
friction
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| n.摩擦，摩擦力 | |
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148
metallic
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| adj.金属的；金属制的；含金属的；产金属的；像金属的 | |
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149
parlous
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| adj.危险的，不确定的，难对付的 | |
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150
virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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151
meteorite
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| n.陨石；流星 | |
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152
meteorites
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| n.陨星( meteorite的名词复数 ) | |
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153
epidemics
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| n．流行病 | |
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154
witchcraft
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| n.魔法，巫术 | |
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155
rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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156
rheumatism
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| n.风湿病 | |
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157
piecemeal
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| adj.零碎的；n.片，块；adv.逐渐地；v.弄成碎块 | |
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158
conscientiously
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| adv.凭良心地；认真地，负责尽职地；老老实实 | |
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159
intentionally
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| ad.故意地，有意地 | |
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160
demurely
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| adv.装成端庄地，认真地 | |
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161
patriots
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| 爱国者，爱国主义者( patriot的名词复数 ) | |
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162
gilded
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| a.镀金的，富有的 | |
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163
pinnacle
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| n.尖塔，尖顶，山峰；(喻)顶峰 | |
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164
apparition
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| n.幽灵，神奇的现象 | |
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165
tripe
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| n.废话，肚子, 内脏 | |
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166
gliding
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| v. 滑翔 adj. 滑动的 | |
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167
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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168
intrepid
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| adj.无畏的，刚毅的 | |
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169
nonchalance
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| n.冷淡，漠不关心 | |
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170
darted
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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171
leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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172
boggy
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| adj.沼泽多的 | |
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173
daunted
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| 使（某人）气馁，威吓( daunt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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174
trench
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| n./v.(挖)沟，(挖)战壕 | |
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175
poetical
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| adj.似诗人的；诗一般的；韵文的；富有诗意的 | |
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176
perversely
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| adv. 倔强地 | |
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177
corruption
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| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
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178
deities
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| n.神，女神( deity的名词复数 )；神祗；神灵；神明 | |
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179
immortals
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| 不朽的人物( immortal的名词复数 )； 永生不朽者 | |
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180
impartial
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| adj.(in,to)公正的，无偏见的 | |
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181
beholder
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| n.观看者，旁观者 | |
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182
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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183
discriminating
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| a.有辨别能力的 | |
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184
irresistibly
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| adv.无法抵抗地，不能自持地；极为诱惑人地 | |
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185
riddled
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| adj.布满的；充斥的；泛滥的v.解谜，出谜题(riddle的过去分词形式) | |
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186
fusion
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| n.溶化；熔解；熔化状态，熔和；熔接 | |
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187
slag
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| n.熔渣，铁屑，矿渣；v.使变成熔渣，变熔渣 | |
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188
overflowed
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| 溢出的 | |
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189
overflow
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| v.(使)外溢，(使)溢出；溢出，流出，漫出 | |
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190
conclusively
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| adv.令人信服地，确凿地 | |
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191
inundation
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| n.the act or fact of overflowing | |
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192
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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193
appreciable
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| adj.明显的，可见的，可估量的，可觉察的 | |
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194
omnipotence
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| n.全能，万能，无限威力 | |
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195
relegated
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| v.使降级( relegate的过去式和过去分词 )；使降职；转移；把…归类 | |
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196
provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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197
harmoniously
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| 和谐地，调和地 | |
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198
devouring
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| 吞没( devour的现在分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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199
abhorrence
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| n.憎恶；可憎恶的事 | |
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200
philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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201
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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202
crumbling
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| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
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203
marvelling
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| v.惊奇，对…感到惊奇( marvel的现在分词 ) | |
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