p. 72 | Winter Lightning

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 11, 1873

Winter Lightning.

The Freaks of Electricity on the Telegraph Wires in the Recent Storm.

Mr. C. H. Simmons, electrician of the Western Union Telegraph Company, a gentleman whose careful and accurate observations have before placed scientific men under many obligations to him, furnishes the Inter-Ocean the following highly interesting account of the electrical phenomena which attended the great storm of the 7th and 8th inst. Mr. Simmons says in his letter accompanying the account: “I regret that I am unable to give you a solution of the whole affair, but my statement may be the means of causing others to make observations in the future.” The following is the statement:

The recent storm which passed over the West and Northwest was accompanied by some very peculiar electrical phenomena, rarely seen east of the Rocky Mountains. These phenomena may be called electrical storms in contradistinction to the auroral or magnetic storms—the former being confined to a comparatively small space, beyond which the state of the electricity in the atmosphere remains unchanged, while the latter manifests itself over whole continents simultaneously, while evolving light by the action of magnetic forces. The area in which this electrical display was confined, was clearly marked, having Minnesota for its northern boundary, Iowa for the south, Detroit for the east, and Omaha for the west, limit. It was first noticed on the telegraph wires in Central Iowa, on the afternoon of January 7, at 2:25 P. M. The lines leading west were rendered useless for the transmission of messages, owing to an incessant discharge of electricity, increasing in intensity until it would leap from one strap of the switch-board to another, across the intervening space, and then in a luminous stream to the ground plate of the lightning arrester. At times, the whole brass-work of the switch-board would appear as a mass of flame, illuminating the office with a blinding glare. The excellent arrangement with which every office is provided for discharging the lightning from the iron during the frequent thunder-storms of the western plains, proved adequate for the discharge in this case, although in intensity and volume much greater than ever before witnessed. For several hours previous, and for some time after the cessation of these electrical discharges, a southwest wind was blowing at a speed of thirty-five miles per hour, accompanied by light snow, with the thermometer at five degrees. At 6:45 P. M. the electrical storm had reached the Mississippi River, traveling eastward, producing similar effects to those noted in Central Iowa. At about 9:30 P. M. light discharges from the western wires were observed in the Chicago office, but it was evident that these came from a distance, and that the storm had not traveled far east of the Mississippi. These continued at intervals during the night of the 7th, and until the evening of the 8th, when the discharges became more rapid and of exceedingly high tension. When the batteries were taken off, and both ends of the line left open, if the finger of an individual standing upon the floor was presented in proximity to the wire, an immediate discharge took place in the form of a spark; and when a number joined hands and insulated themselves from the floor, a spark could be drawn from any of them by any one standing on the floor. It was now evident that the storm had reached this locality, and it was ascertained that it had entirely ceased west of the Mississippi River. Observation disclosed the fact that, with two or three exceptions, the effect was confined to wires running almost due east and west, the exception being on wires running due north from Chicago, on which but little interference was noticed.

Another singular fact observed was, on some routes, where a number of wires occupied the same poles, one wire alone was highly charged and so affected that to work it was an impossibility, while all the others were entirely free from any external influence. In some cases, the wire occupying the top of the pole would apparently receive the whole of the charge; in other cases, the bottom wire would receive it, and still in others, the charge seemed to be divided equally between all the wires. In the Chicago offices, the effect was similar to that observed in Iowa, and every observation confirmed the opinion that the center line of the storm was due east from Des Moines, Iowa, to Detroit, Michigan, narrowing in its limits north and south as it approached the latter place, where it arrived on the evening of the 8th inst., and rapidly subsided. A high wind, varying from 28 to 25 miles per hour, with the same range of temperature as first noted, accompanied the electrical storm from its inception in the West until it had passed Chicago, where the weather was clear and bright, but the wind still blowing a gale. This display was observed by a large number of operators and practical telegraph men, and all accord in saying that its effects were entirely different from those experienced during ordinary auroral storms with which they are familiar.

At the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, a similar phenomenon has been frequently witnessed upon a wire running north and south, but rarely on an east and west wire. As a high wind always prevails when the effect is experienced, many telegraph experts have attributed it to the friction of the wind, but this theory does not appear tenable, from the fact that we so frequently have the wind without electric charge. That the electricity evolved by various processes accumulates in the atmosphere, and varies in condition and intensity, is universally admitted, and that it is stronger in winter than in summer has been abundantly proved. Sir William Thompson has shown, by experiments with the electrometer, that, during a wind, the air is charged very intensely positive. Now, upon the theory that the earth is charged negative to the atmosphere, there must be a point at the surface of the earth where discharge occurs or neutralization takes place. At points where the relative humidity of the air is very great this is doubtless ever silently going on; but during seasons of intense cold, when the air is necessarily dry, the combination is rendered more difficult, and the tension thereby greatly augmented. If, under these circumstances, good conductors, such as telegraph wires, are interposed, they would certainly assist in carrying a good part of the atmospheric charge to a point where the electrical tension was far less.

What the electrical condition of the telegraph wires on the same poles were, to render one more susceptible of this inductive influence than another is difficult to determine. Or why wires running in other than east and west directions should not have been similarly affected, is a problem we shall call upon our meteorological friends to assist in solving. It is a fact, however, that the resistance and insulation, as measured and adopted as a standard of excellence in propagating the electrical current of the ordinary voltaic battery, did not assist in the least in forming a theory.

Should a recurrent storm pass over this latitude, it is hoped that more accurate and systematic observations will be made, and a possible solution result.