WINTER LIGHTNING.
I am told that scientific students of our weather would like information from amateur observers on the curiosities of winter thunderstorms. The phenomenon is said to be on the increase in England, and if one may judge by January, 1927, its oddity also increases. Countrymen were startled to the point of fear by thelatest.-- it broke quite suddenly at 6 a.m. ; and the earliness of the hour may account for the small amount of attention paid to its unusual qindities. The lightning must certainly have been quite unlike common and summer lightning. A rural postman described thes:firSt flash to me as looking exactly like a Roman candle ; and his descrip- tion tallies with all other accounts that I have been able to collect from eye-witnesses. The simile is not-highly scientific ; but it happens not seldom-that popular accounts of this sort give suggestive hints to scientific inquirers. The lightning was certainly less sharply -defined, less forked thari.in summer thunderstorms ; and it is the task of the scientists to decide whether this is due to the atmospheric effect or a quality in the lightning itself.
BEACH THOMAS.
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