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EYE-WITNESS REPORTS |
Strong atmospheric electricity may be a precursor or
somehow involved in the
earthlight mechanism. This fascinating report does not
directly describe
earthlights, but is an amazing account of both observable
geophysical
effects and biological effects of strong atmospheric
electricity that
occurred in the Rocky mountains just before a major flood.
[Thanks to RO for
bringing this interesting account to our attention.] |
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Author: Mills, Enos Abijah, 1870-1922.
Title: Wild life on the Rockies, by Enos A.
Mills
Publisher: Boston and New York, Houghton Mifflin company,
1909. |
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WHILE on the sky-line as State Snow Observer, I had one
adventure with the elements that called for the longest
special report that I have ever written. Perhaps I cannot do
better than quote this report transmitted to Professor
Carpenter, at Denver, on May 26, 1904.
NOTES ON THE POUDRE FLOOD
The day before the Poudre flood, I traveled for eight hours
northwesterly along the top of the Continental Divide, all
the time being above timber-line and from eleven thousand to
twelve thousand feet above sea-level. The morning was
cloudless and hot. The western sky was marvelously clear.
Eastward, a thin, dark haze overspread everything below ten
thousand feet. By 9.30 A. M. this haze had ascended higher
than where I was. At nine o'clock the snow on which I
walked, though it had been frozen hard during the night, was
soggy and wet. About 9.30 a calm that had prevailed all the
morning gave way before an easy intermittent warm breeze
from the southeast. At 10.10 the first cloud appeared in the
north, just above Hague's Peak. It was a heavy cumulus
cloud, but I do not know from what direction it came. It
rose high in the air, drifted slowly toward the west, and
then seemed to dissolve. At any rate, it vanished. About
10.30 several heavy clouds rose from behind Long's Peak,
moving toward the northwest, rising higher into the sky as
they advanced. The wind, at first in fitful dashes from the
southeast, began to come more steadily and swiftly after
eleven o'clock, and was so warm that the snow softened to a
sloppy state. The air carried a tinge of haze, and
conditions were oppressive. It was labor to breathe. Never,
except one deadly hot July day in New York City, have I felt
so overcome with heat and choking air. Perspiration simply
streamed from me. These oppressive conditions continued for
two hours,- until about one o'clock.
While they lasted, my eyes pained, ached, and twitched.
There was no glare, but only by keeping my eyes closed could
I stand the half-burning pain.
Finally I came to some crags and lay down for a time in the
shade. I was up eleven thousand five hundred feet and the
time was 12.20. As I lay on the snow gazing upward, I became
aware that there were several flotillas of clouds of from
seven to twenty each, and these were moving toward every
point of the compass. Each seemed on a different stratum of
air, and each moved through space a considerable distance
above or below the others. The clouds moving eastward were
the highest. Most of the lower clouds were those moving
westward. The haze and sunlight gave color to every cloud,
and this color varied from smoky red to orange.
At two o'clock the haze came in from the east almost as
dense as a fog-bank, crossed the ridge before me, and spread
out as dark and foreboding as the smoke of Vesuvius. Behind
me the haze rolled upward when it struck the ridge, and I
had clear glimpses whenever I looked to the southwest. This
heavy, muddy haze prevailed for a little more than half an
hour, and as it cleared, the clouds began to disappear, but
a gauzy haze still continued in the air. The feeling in the
air was not agreeable, and for the first time in my life I
felt alarmed by the shifting, rioting clouds and the weird
haze. I arrived at timber-line south of Poudre Lakes about
4.30 P. M., and for more than half an hour the sky, except
in the east over the foothills, was clear, and the sunlight
struck a glare from the snow. With the cleared air there
came to me an easier feeling. The oppressiveness ceased. I
descended a short distance into the woods and relaxed on a
fallen tree that lay above the snow.
I had been there but a little while, when - snap! buzz! buzz
! buzz! ziz! ziz! and electricity began to pull my
hair and hum around my ears. The electricity passed off
shortly, but in a little while it caught me again by the
hair for a brief time, and this time my right arm
momentarily cramped and my heart seemed to give several
lurches. I arose and tramped on and downward, but every
little while I was in for shocking treatment. The electrical
waves came from the southwest and moved northeast. They were
separated by periods of from one to several minutes in
length, and were about two seconds in passing. During their
presence they made it lively for me, with hair-pulling,
heart-palpitation, and muscular cramps. I tried moving
speedily with the wave, also standing still and lying down,
hoping that the wave would pass me by; but in each and every
case it gave me the same stirring treatment. Once I stood
erect and rigid as the wave came on, but it intensified
suddenly the rigidity of every muscle to a seemingly
rupturing extent, and I did not try that plan again. The
effect of each wave on me seemed to be slightly weakened
whenever I lay down and fully relaxed my muscles.
I was on a northerly slope, in spruce timber, tramping over
five feet of snow. During these electrical waves, the points
of dry twigs were tipped with a smoky blue flame, and
sometimes bands of this bluish flame encircled green trees
just below their lower limbs. I looked at the compass a few
times, and though the needle occasionally swayed a little,
it was not affected in any marked manner.
The effect of the electrical waves on me became less as I
descended, but whether from my getting below the electrical
stratum, or from a cessation of the current, I cannot say.
But I did not descend much below eleven thousand feet, and
at the lowest point I crossed the South Poudre, at the
outlet of Poudre Lakes. In crossing I broke through the ice
and received a wetting, with the exception of my right side
above the hip. Once across, I walked about two hundred yards
through an opening, then again entered the woods, on the
southeasterly slope of Specimen Mountain.
I had climbed only a short distance up this slope when
another electrical wave struck me. The effect of this was
similar to that of the preceding ones. There was, however, a
marked difference in the intensity with which the
electricity affected the wet and the dry portions of my
body. The effect on my right side and shoulder, which had
escaped wetting when I broke through the ice, was noticeably
stronger than on the rest of my body. Climbing soon dried my
clothes sufficiently to make this difference no longer
noticeable. The waves became more frequent than at first,
but not so strong. I made a clumsy climb of about five
hundred feet, my muscles being "muscle-bound" all the time
with rigidity from electricity. But this climb brought me
almost to timber-line on Specimen Mountain, and also under
the shadow of the south peak of it. At this place the
electrical effects almost ceased. Nor did I again seriously
feel the current until I found myself out in the sunlight
which came between the two peaks of Specimen.
While I continued in the sunlight I felt the electrical
wave, but, strange to say, when I again entered the
shadow I almost wholly escaped it. When I started on the
last slope toward the top of North Specimen, I came out into
the sunlight again, and I also passed into an electrical
sea. The slope was free from snow, and as the electrical
waves swept in close succession, about thirty seconds apart,
they snapped, hummed, and buzzed in such a manner that their
advance and retreat could be plainly heard. In passing by
me, the noise was more of a crackling and humming nature,
while a million faint sparks flashed from the stones
(porphyry and rhyolite) as the wave passed over. But the
effect on me became constant. Every muscle was almost
immovable. I could climb only a few steps without weakening
to the stopping-point. I breathed only by gasps, and my
heart became violent and feeble by turns. I felt as if
cinched in a steel corset. After I had spent ten long
minutes and was only half-way up a slope, the entire length
of which I had more than once climbed in a few minutes and
in fine shape, I turned to retreat, but as there was no
cessation of the electrical colic, I faced about and started
up again. I reached the top a few minutes before 6.30 p. M.,
and shortly afterward the sun disappeared behind clouds and
peaks.
I regret that I failed to notice whether the electrical
effects ceased with the setting of the sun, but it was
not long after the disappearance of the sun before I was at
ease, enjoying the magnificent mountain-range of clouds that
had formed above the foothills and stood up glorious in the
sunlight. Shortly before five o'clock the clouds had begun
to pile up in the east, and their gigantic forms, flowing
outlines, and glorious lighting were the only things that
caused the electrical effects to be forgotten even
momentarily. The clouds formed into a long, solid,
rounded range that rose to great height and was miles in
length. The southern end of this range was in the haze, and
I could not make out its outline further south than a point
about opposite Loveland, Colorado, nor could I see the
northern end beyond a few miles north of Cheyenne, where it
was cut off by a dozen strata of low clouds that moved
steadily at a right angle to the east. Sixty miles of length
was visible. Its height, like that of the real mountains
which it paralleled, diminished toward the north. The place
of greatest altitude was about twenty-five miles distant
from me. From my location, the clouds presented a long and
smoothly terraced slope, the top of which was at least five
thousand feet and may have been fifteen thousand feet above
me. The clouds seemed compact; at times they surged upwards;
then they would settle with a long, undulating swell, as if
some unseen power were trying to force them further, up the
mountains, while they were afraid to try it.
Finally a series of low, conical peaks rose on the summit of
the cloud-range, and the peaks and the upper cloud-slope
resembled the upper portion of a circus-tent. There were no
rough places or angles. When darkness came on, the surface
of this cloud-range was at times splendidly illuminated by
electricity beneath; and, when the darkness, deepened, the
electrical play beneath often caused the surface to shine
momentarily like incandescent glass, and occasionally
sinuous rivers of gold ran over the slopes. Several times I
thought that the course of these golden rivers of
electrical fire was from the bottom upward, but so brilliant
and dazzling were they that I could not positively decide on
the direction of their movement. Never have I seen such
enormous cloud-forms or such brilliant electrical effects.
The summit of Specimen Mountain, from which I watched the
clouds and electrical flashes, is about twelve thousand five
hundred feet above sea-level. A calm prevailed while I
remained on top. It was about 8.30 P. M. when I left the
summit, on snowshoes, and swept down the steep northern
slope into the woods. This hurry caused no unusual heart or
muscle action. The next morning was cloudy as low down as
ten thousand five hundred feet, and, for all I know, lower
still. The night had been warm, and the morning had the
oppressive feeling that dominated the morning before. The
clouds broke up before nine o'clock, and the air, with haze
in it, seemed yellow. About 10.30, haze and, soon after,
clouds came in from the southeast (at this time I was high
up on the southerly slope of Mt. Richthofen), and by eleven
o'clock the sky was cloudy.
Up to this time the air, when my snow-glasses were off,
burned and twitched my eyes in the same manner as on the
previous morning.Early in the afternoon I left Grand Ditch
Camp and started down to Chambers Lake. I had not gone far
when drops of rain began to fall from time to time, and
shortly after this my muscles began to twitch occasionally
under electrical ticklings. At times slight muscular
rigidity was noticeable. Just before two o'clock the clouds
began to burst through between the trees. I was at an
altitude of about eleven thousand feet and a short distance
from the head of Trap Creek. Rain, hail, and snow fell in
turn, and the lightning began frequently to strike the
rocks. With the beginning of the lightning my muscles ceased
to be troubled with either twitching or rigidity. For the
two hours between 2 and 4 P. M. the crash and roll of
thunder was incessant. I counted twenty-three times that the
lightning struck the rocks, but I did not see it strike a
tree. The clouds were low, and the wind came from the east
and the northeast, then from the west.
About four o'clock, I broke through the snow, tumbled into
Trap Creek, and had to swim a little. This stream was really
very swift, and ran in a narrow gulch, but it was blocked by
snow and by tree-limbs swept down by the flood, and a pond
had been formed. It was crowded with a deep deposit of snow
which rested on a shelf of ice. This covering was shattered
and uplifted by the swollen stream, and I had slipped on the
top of the gulch and tumbled in.
Once in, the swift water tugged at me to pull me under; the
cakes of snow and ice hampered me, and my snow-shoes were
entangled with brush and limbs. The combination seemed
determined to drown me. For a few seconds I put forth all my
efforts to get at my pocket-knife. This accomplished, the
fastenings of my snowshoes were cut, and unhampered by
these, I escaped the waters.
Since I have felt no ill results, the effect of the entire
experience may have been beneficial. The clouds, glorious as
they had been in formation and coloring, resulted in a
terrible cloudburst. Enormous quantities of water were
poured out, and this, falling upon the treeless foothills,
rushed away to do more than a million dollars' damage in the
rich and beautiful Poudre Valley. |
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