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Crosse, Andrew – Experiments in a thunderstorm
Identifier
026660
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Memorials, Scientific and Literary of Andrew Crosse, the Electrician – Cornelia and Andrew Crosse
When the centre of the cloud is vertical to the wire the greatest effect consequently takes place, during which the windows rattle in their frames, and the bursts of thunder without and noise within, every now and then accompanied with a crash of accumulated fluid in the wire, striving to get free between the balls produce the most awful effect, which is not a little increased by the pauses occasioned by the interchange of zones.
Great caution must of course be observed during this interval, or the consequences would be fatal.
My battery consists of fifty jars, containing seventy-three feet of surface on one side only. This battery, when fully charged, will perfectly fuse into red-hot balls thirty feet of iron wire, in one length, such wire being 1/27O of an inch in diameter.
When this battery is connected with 3000 feet of exploring wire, during a thunder-storm, it is charged fully and instantaneously, and of course as quickly discharged.
As I am fearful of destroying my jars, I connect the two opposite coatings of the battery with brass balls, one inch in diameter, and placed at such distance from each other as to cause a discharge when the battery receives three-fourths of its charge. When the middle of a thundercloud is overhead, a crashing stream of discharge takes place between the balls, the effect of which must be witnessed to be conceived.