William Snow Harris to Faraday   26 October 1842

Plymouth October 26, 1842

My dear Faraday

I was much delighted at seeing your hand writing again - you do not know what great pleasure I experience in hearing from you. With respect to the expression of Globular Lightning quoted from Arago¹ - & my description of a fire Ball, it may be, as you say; there is really no such thing - and perhaps I was too indefinite in my language. I intended to convey however some notion of the impressions made upon those who had witnessed discharges of Lightning productive of mischief in order to fix the attention on the immediate operation of such discharges - in contradistinction to those more playful corruscations and branching sparks which sometimes strike out from clouds and are lost as it were in the air - at least apparently so. That the discharges which do mischief in Lightning Storms - assume to the senses the appearance I mention is quite certain. Almost all the descriptions given in the Logs of the Navy - contain the expression - "A Ball of fire was seen to Dart" &c. All the sailors invariably speak of Fire Balls[.] If you will look in Priestl[e]ys² History of Electricity at page 352 and 353³ you will find a curious description of this kind - I confess I read this with some suspicion at first - but having met with many such accounts subsequently I now regard it as being rather important.

Some years since, a dreadful accident by Lightning happened on the Malvern Hills. I have the Newspaper acct. by me cut out of the Newspaper but unluckily without date. Some Ladies there on a party of pleasure were killed. The account runs thus. It appears that the Party had sought shelter in a Building or Tower of Stone covered with Iron "Miss Margaret Hill⁴ was looking out of the door way to see if the storm had passed when she saw the Electric fluid appearing as a mass of fire rolling along the Hill and approaching their retreat &c &c".

In a storm Novr 7 many years since - the Papers describe the Lightning thus - "An old waterman at Hammersmith near the new Bridge⁵ perceived what he terms a fire Ball im[m]ediatley succeed the terrific commotion just mentioned, shoot into the river. He describes the appearance as a Ball of fire like a solid rough Globe of flame. It passed through the opening between the houses close to him - about 19 years before he witnessed a similar thing in the same place".

A scientific friend of mine here an accurate observer told me this day, that he was once in the Dartmoor Hills - when he saw a thunder cloud break on a near Hill of Granite and an apparent ball of fire descended over the Hill to a rivulet in the valley⁶.

I have in my collection a hundred such descriptions I believe. I have at all events a very great number all coinciding with the account given in Priestl[e]ys History[.]

Arago it is clear has taken up the same notion by calling this Globular Lightning. All I meant therefore to convey in my paper⁷ was the vulgar Idea of that destructive effect produced by the discharge of a polarized set of particles intervening between terminating conducting planes; and that such discharges had a definite and exclusive course determinable by mere mathematical distance and resistance. Perhaps I have been hasty in not conveying a better view of the spark, such as would come out by a more critical & scientific examination, but I had not that object in view when I wrote. I have however in my early papers in the Nautical Magazine⁸ classed these appearances more immediately with the general laws and nature of disruptive discharge.

With respect to the Conductors - as you say - I consider that Question settled - and can not but think I have by my perseverance in their application to Ships obtained some important practical & great natural experiments of value. The Admiralty have lately had some fine notices of the effects of the Conductor in parrying & rendering harmless such discharges. The Actaeon for example lately returned from Central America - a part of the World terrible for discharges of Lightning - came out of several fearful storms of Lightning most triumphantly⁹ - On one occasion at midnight the ship was threatened with destruction both by the violence of the Squall and the Electrical discharges which every now & then burst round the ship.. The top sails were lowered on the Caps. The Lightning enveloped the ship for an hour[.] Once only in this time a fearful shock burst on the main mast Conductor. The Officer of the Watch¹⁰ says the vivid Light which fell on the Conductor took away his sight for many minutes, that a horrid crash came at the same time, simultaneously. The Carpenter Mr May¹¹ says it was the same as if all the ship's Guns had been fired at once. That the ship fairly shook under it, and that he was standing very near the Mast - and observed the Cutlasses & swords stowed in a frame round the Mast; fairly rattle in the stand. They examined the Conductors the next day - but found no ill effects on them - No damage ensued - not a rope yarn suffered¹². Fancy all this in a Southern sea - Pitch dark with a heavy sea - with the Sails round the Mast &c. . . . This would have been a nice time to have sent the men aloft to shorten in the slack of a chain or wire Rope Conductor - would it not? and if the Chain or wire had been snapped by the violence of the Gale and come partly in board hanging down with a terminating end thus as at a what must have happened then?

I consider this a beautiful case - reducible to an experiment on a great scale. All the Seamen on the Ship even have acknowledged the great value of this method of applying capacious Conductors to Ships.

Daniell & Wheatstone have blamed me for meddling with Mr Walkers¹³ paper¹⁴ but I do not know when so great a public question is concerned that I have any pretension to hold my head so high as to think others beneath notice. My Talents do not place me in the position which yours do or Daniells.

I am now about to ask a favor of you - if you think you can manage to grant it without inconvenience.

I have been requested to draw up a small treatise¹⁵ for the press on this subject - which is now in hand - and in the first pages I have stated your views of Induction, Polarization &c¹⁶. Would you be so good as to read these 3 or 4 Pages over for me, and say if you think I have put the matter in a clear condensed form, and such as you yourself would not object to?

I wish my Dear Faraday - I could persuade you for your Health's sake to come here next Summer & spend a short time, that I might get you on the Breakwater and with one or two of my medical friends; perhaps one only, have the gratification of giving you our most affectionate & disinterested attention - I am impressed with the Idea, that were you to venture - you would go back full of Devonshire Cream & Health. - You should stay here about 2 months - making Philosophy an amusement or Play thing only

Believe me ever with the most sincere regard | & esteem your very faithful friend | W. Snow Harris

Dr. Faraday FRS, | &c