[pct-l] Fwd: Lightning: Pre-strike sounds and sensations, Franklin Rhoda on

[Brick Robbins]

I was asked to forward this to the list

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Robert Ellinwood <rellinwood at worldnet.att.net>
Date: Mar 5, 2007 5:51 AM
Subject: Thanks, Brick. Here it is.
To: Brick Robbins <brick at fastpack.com>


Subject:  Lightning: Pre-strike sounds and sensations, Franklin Rhoda on
Sunshine Peak, CO, Aug 13, 1874

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For those hikers interested in the sounds and sensations of a lightning
strike described in August, 1874:   Clicks, humming, sizzling, musical
sound?  This was educational for me.  Perhaps others will also learn
something, as well.

Dr Bob

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From:  Summits to Reach - An Annotated Edition of Franklin Rhoda's "Report
on the Topography of the San Juan Country"  by Mike Foster.  Pruett
Publishing Co.,  Boulder,  1984,  pp.21-25.

[This event took place on 13,967' Sunshine Peak, next to Red Cloud Peak, on
August 13, 1874]

"We had scarcely got started to work when we both began to feel a particular
tickling sensation along the roots of our hair, just at the edge of our
hats, caused by the electricity in the air.  At first this sensation was
only perceptible and not at all troublesome; still its strength surprised
us, since the cloud causing it was yet several miles distant to the
southwest of us.  In the early part of the storm the tension of the
electricity increased quite slowly, as indicated by the effect on our hair.
By holding up our hands above our heads a tickling sound was produced, which
was still louder if we held a hammer or other instrument in our hand.  The
tickling sensation above was accompanied by a peculiar sound almost exactly
like that produced by the frying of bacon.   This latter phenomenon, when
continued for any length of time, becomes highly monotonous and
disagreeable.  Although the clouds were yet distant, we saw that they were
fast spreading and already veiled many degrees of the horizon.  As they
approached nearer, the tension of the electricity increased more rapidly,
and the extent of our horizon obscured by them increased in nearly the same
ratio; so that the rapid increase in the electric tension marked also an
increased velocity in recording angles and making sketches.  We felt that we
could not stop, though the frying of our hair became louder and more
disagreeable, for certain parts of the drainage of this region could not be
seen from any other peak, and we did not want to ascend this one a second
time.

As the force of the electricity increased, and the rate of increase became
greater and greater, the instrument on the tripod began to click like a
telegraph machine when it is made to work rapidly; at the same time we
noticed that the pencils in our fingers made a similar but finer sound
whenever we let them lie back so as to touch the flesh of the hand between
the thumb and forefinger.  This sound is at first nothing but a continuous
series of clicks, distinctly separable one from the other, but the intervals
becoming less and less, till finally a musical sound results.  The effect on
our hair became more and more marked, till, ten or fifteen minutes after its
first appearance, there was sudden and instantaneous relief, as if all the
electricity had been suddenly drawn from us.  After the lapse of a few
seconds the cause became apparent, as a peal of thunder reached our ears.
The lightning had struck a neighboring peak, and the electricity in the air
had been discharged.  Almost before the sound reaches us the tickling and
frying in our hair began again, and the same series of phenomena were
repeated, but in quicker succession, at the same time the sounds becoming
louder...

The clouds soon began to rise up and approach us.  As they did so, the
electricity became stronger and stronger, till another stroke of lightning
afforded instantaneous relief; but now the relief was only for an instant,
and the tension increased faster and faster until the next stroke.  By this
time the work was getting exciting.  We were electrified, and our notes were
taken and recorded with lightning speed, in keeping with the terrible
tension of the stormcloud's electricity.  The cloud reached us, coming on
like a fog, looking thin and light near us, but densely white at a short
distance.  All the phenomena before mentioned increased in force after each
succeeding stroke of lightning, while the intervals between strokes became
less and less.  When we raised our hats our hair stood on end, the sharp
points of the hundreds of stones about us each emitted a continuous sound,
while the instrument outsang everything else, and even at this high
elevation could be heard distinctly at the distance of fifty yards.  The
points of the angular stones being of different degrees of sharpness, each
produced a sound peculiar to itself.  The general effect of all was as if a
heavy breeze were blowing across the mountain.  The air was quite still, so
that the wind could have played no part in this strange natural concert, nor
was the intervention of a mythological Orpheus necessary to give to these
trachytic stones a voice.

Having completed a rough sketch of as much of the surrounding country as was
not obscured by clouds, I hastily took up the mercurial barometer, hoping to
get a reading before we should be compelled to leave the summit; but, alas!
too late for success.  The lightning-strokes were now coming thicker and
faster, being separated by not more than two or three minutes of time, and
we knew that our peak would soon be struck.  As I took the barometer out of
its leather case, and held it vertically, a terrible humming commenced from
the brass ring at the end, and increased in loudness so rapidly that I
considered it best to crawl hastily down the side of the peak to a point a
few feet below the top, where, by lying low between the rocks, I could
return the instrument to its case with comparative safety.  At the same
time, Wilson was driven from his instrument, and we both crouched down among
the rocks to await the relief to be given by the next stroke, which, for
aught we knew, might strike the instrument which now stood alone on the
summit.  At this time, it was producing a terrible humming, which, with the
noises emitted by the thousands of angular blocks of stone, and the sounds
produced by our hair, made such a din that we could scarcely think.  The
fast-increasing electricity was suddenly discharged, as we had anticipated,
by another stroke of lightning, which, luckily for us, struck a point some
distance away.

The instant he felt the relief, Wilson made a sudden dash for the
instrument, on his hands and knees, seized the legs of the tripod, and
flinging the instrument over his shoulder dashed back.  Although all this
occupied only a few seconds, the tension was so great that he received a
strong electric shock, accompanied by a pain as if a sharp-pointed
instrument had pierced his shoulder, where the tripod came in contact with
it.  In his haste he dropped the small brass cap which protected the
object-glass of the telescope; but, as the excitement and danger had now
grown so great, he did not trouble himself to go back after it, and it still
remains there in place of the monument we could not build to testify to the
strange experiences on this our station 12.  We started as fast as we could
walk over the loose rock, down the southeast side of the peak, but had
scarcely got more than 30 feet [he must have meant yards] from the top when
it was struck.  We had only just missed it, and felt thankful for our narrow
escape."