James Nasmyth on the form of lightningIn 1856, James Nasmyth spoke “On the Form of Lightning” on the opening day of the 26th Meeting of the British Association at Cheltenham. He said that he wanted to call attention to the fact that Nature never showed a zig-zag dovetail form of lightning as often portrayed by painters and in other works of art. The true natural form was irregular curved lines, single or branched. He attributed the artists' error to the form of the thunderbolt in the hand of Jupiter, as sculptured by the early Greeks. He thought lightning mostly shot up from the earth to the cloud and often continued from the cloud downwards again to another distant part of the earth. The appearance of the lightning, he conceived, was of a rapidly shooting point of light, leaving on the eye the impression of the path it traced. Animated discussion followed.«[Image upper: artists' dovetail form of lightning. Lower: natural form. Illustrations from the Report of the Annual Meeting (1856).] |
