leafless branches of a tall elm at its western end are represented. At
noon on Saturday, July 28, 1866, during a violent thunder-storm, the
electric fluid seems to have passed down the tree, rending and tearing
some of its branches, and leaving its traces on the trunk. It flashed
into the house. It tore the roof, knocking away one corner, displacing
in patches the mortar that coated the old chimney top and sides,
hacking the edges of the brick-work, splitting off the side of an
extension to the building at the western end, entering a chamber at
that point, where two children were sitting at a window, and throwing
upon the floor, within two or three feet of them, a considerable
portion of the plastered ceiling. It then scattered all through the
apartments. What looked like perforations, as if made by shot or
pistol-balls, were found in many places; but there were no
corresponding marks on the opposite sides of the walls or partitions.
Portions of the paper-hangings were stripped off, and small slivers
ripped up from the floors. It struck the frames of looking-glasses,
cracking off small pieces of the wood, but only in one instance
breaking the mirror. It cut a velvet band by which one was hung; and
it was found on the floor, the mirror downward and unbroken, as if it
had been carefully laid there. In the attic, fragments of the old
gnarled and knotted rafters, of different lengths,--from four or five
feet to mere chips,--were scattered in quantities upon the floor, and
grooves made lengthwise along posts and implements of household use.
Large cracks were left in the wooden casings of some of the doors and
windows. A family of eight persons were seated around the
dinner-table. All were more or less affected. They were deprived for
the time of the use of their feet and ancles; were stunned, paralyzed,
and rendered insensible for a few moments by the shock; and felt the
effects, some of them, for a day or two in their lower limbs. In front
of each person at the table was a tall goblet, which had just been