I got on the royal ship. Everywhere there from bow to stern. On deck and in the hold, and in the cabins I sowed terror; soared like a flame On the mast, on the bowsprit and on the yards.
These lines, taken as an epigraph, are not poetic fiction. There are many eyewitness accounts who observed luminous plumes on masts, topmasts, yards. Ancient sailors called them "the fires of St. Elmo."
Two thousand years ago, the Roman philosopher Seneca said that during a thunderstorm, "the stars seem to descend from the sky and sit on the masts of ships." He had in mind the discharges in the form of a flame, which occur not only on the spars of ships, but also on the domes of churches, the tops of towers, spiers and high in the mountains. However, most often "holy fires" are observed in the ocean. Occasionally, when thunderclouds pass over a ship, a glow can be seen on the masts, usually accompanied by a slight crackle. In daylight, the lights are not visible, but at night they present a spectacular, sometimes eerie picture.
The appearance of "Elmo's lights" was perceived by sailors as a sign announcing the end of the storm and the hard work on the ship. One of the legends about the voyage of Christopher Columbus to America says: “It seemed that the storm would never subside. Exhausted by hard work, frightened by the sparkling lightning and the ferocious ocean, the sailors began to grumble. Columbus was blamed for everything, who started this dangerous voyage, which seemed to have no end. Then the Great Navigator ordered everyone to go up on deck and look at the masts. On their tops were lights of a bluish color. The sailors rejoiced, considering the fires scattered on the masts as a messenger of St. Elmo's mercy towards them.
Watched in amazement Atlantic Ocean the appearance of lights satellites of Magellan. One of them, the knight Pigafetta, made the following entry in his diary: “During storms, we often saw a glow that is called the fires of St. Elmo. Somehow, on a dark night, it appeared to us like a kind light. The lights remained at the top of the mainmast for two hours. In the midst of a fierce storm, this was a great comfort to us. Before disappearing, the glow flashed so brightly that we could almost be stunned. Everyone thought that now death would come. However, at the same moment the wind died down ... "
Indeed, strong winds and high waves precede a thunderstorm. But when a thunderstorm is overhead and the fires of Elmo are lit, the worst is over.
It happens that the glow of the sultans lasts for a long time. Cases have been recorded when a fireball, having descended to the base of the mast, then rolls along the deck. Sometimes the lights run on the waves. Homer and Horace wrote about such phenomena. Then people also considered these lights a happy omen and deified them, calling them the names of Castor and Pollux, the demigods who patronize sailors. English sailors called the "fires of St. Elmo" the body of the saint.
"Holy fires" often appeared in large quantities. In 1622, after bad weather, all the galleys of the island of Malta suddenly lit up with these lights. They seemed to jump from mast to mast, greeted by three whistles and exclamations of sailors.
On June 11, 1686, a French warship, while abeam Madagascar, was subjected to a real attack of "holy fire". Abbé Chauzy, who was on board the ship, wrote: “A terrible wind was blowing, lightning was pouring rain, the whole sea was on fire. Suddenly I saw on all our masts the fires of "Saint Elmo", which descended to the deck. They were the size of a fist, sparkled, jumped and did not burn at all. Everyone smelled sulfur, but there was no thunder. The will-o'-wisps behaved on the ship as if they were at home. This went on until dawn."
On December 30, 1902, the Moravia steamer was near the Cape Verde Islands. The whole team then witnessed an amazing spectacle. Here is an entry in the ship's log made by Captain A. Simpson: “For a whole hour, lightning flashed in the sky. The steel ropes, the tops of the masts, the butts of the yardarms and cargo arrows - everything shone. It seemed that on all the stays every four feet they hung lighted lanterns ... ". Speaking further about the strange noise accompanying the glow, the captain wrote: “It was as if myriads of cicadas settled in a rig, or deadwood and dry grass burned with a crash.”
This interesting phenomenon is often observed by modern navigators.
“In July 1960, I participated in the passage of the ship Dvina from the port of Providence to the port of Nakhodka,” reports V. Alekseev from Primorsky Krai, “and between Cape Olyutorsky and the Commander Islands I witnessed a strange, mysterious natural phenomenon. When at two o'clock in the morning I took over the watch, the sky was covered with black-violet clouds. We were in tow at the Pugachev steamer. After about 30 minutes, I suddenly saw that the contours of its masts, shrouds and superstructure became somehow unusually clearly visible. A few minutes later, a glow appeared on all the protruding parts of the ship, and like luminous brushes appeared on the masts of the mast. Soon, it seemed, the entire surface of the vessel was covered with a luminous bluish fringe. I did not notice any special sounds or smells. "Pugachev" was observed as a continuous luminous spot. All this lasted two and a half hours.
What are Elmo lights? What is the reason for such a seemingly mysterious natural phenomenon?
They look like flames, but in reality they have nothing to do with fire. These are the so-called silent discharges of atmospheric electricity, which are most often observed during thunderstorms, snow storms, and squalls.
Fireworks of atmospheric electricity are not always accompanied by thunderstorms. During a thunderstorm, sometimes long before it develops, tension electric field in the atmosphere increases many hundreds and even thousands of times. It is then that quite often a special kind of luminous discharges appear on the points and sharp corners objects that rise above the earth's surface. The potential of the electric field on them can reach such a critical value that it turns out to be sufficient for an electrical breakdown of air. This phenomenon is accompanied by the flow of electric charges, causing the formation of a luminous "crown". A similar glow can be observed in fluorescent lamps.
"Elm's Lights" were reproduced for the first time in the laboratory of Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences BV Voitsekhovsky. With regard to this phenomenon, Bogdan Vyacheslavovich then expressed his own point of view, which was different from the generally accepted one: “Like most of the phenomena associated with atmospheric electricity,“ Elm’s fires ”occur in clouds - in a mass of charged particles that usually carry a negative charge. In bad weather, clouds can drop very low and touch earthly objects with their lower part: spiers, towers, trees, ship masts. Drops of water with a negative charge meet these positively charged objects, and there are endless discharges, a kind of micro-lightning. It is they who make the spiers and masts glow.
"Holy lights" create interference and hinder radio communications. And although they are safe, they should still be avoided, as they indicate places where large charges of atmospheric electricity can be concentrated.
The ancient Roman philosopher Seneca, subdividing fire into two types - earthly and heavenly, argued that during a thunderstorm "the stars seem to descend from the sky and sit on the masts of ships." But the main difference between heavenly fire and earthly fire is that it does not burn, does not ignite objects and cannot be extinguished with water.
Cohorts of Roman legionnaires, arranging a night bivouac, stuck their spears into the ground, surrounding the camp with a kind of fence. When the weather foreshadowed a night thunderstorm, blue tassels of "heavenly fire" were often lit on the tips of the spears. It was a good sign from heaven: since ancient times, such a glow was called the fires of the Dioscuri, who were considered the heavenly patrons of warriors and sailors.
After 2000 years, in the more enlightened XVII-XVIII centuries, this phenomenon was adapted to warn of a thunderstorm. In many European castles, a spear was installed on a hill. Since the fire of the Dioscuri is not visible during the day, the guard regularly brought a halberd to the tip of the spear: if sparks jumped between them, one should immediately ring the bell, warning of an imminent thunderstorm. Naturally, at that time the phenomenon was no longer called by a pagan name, and since such a glow most often appeared on the spiers and crosses of churches, many local names appeared: the fires of St. Nicholas, Claudius, Helena and, finally, St. Elmo.
Depending on what the “heavenly fire” appears on, it can take on different forms: a uniform glow, separate flickering lights, brushes or torches. Sometimes it is so reminiscent of an earthly flame that they tried to extinguish it. There were also other curiosities.
In 1695, a sailing ship was caught in a thunderstorm in the Mediterranean. Fearing a storm, the captain ordered the sails to be lowered. And then, on different parts of the spars of the ship, more than 30 fires of St. Elmo appeared. On the weather vane of the main mast, the fire reached half a meter in height. The captain, apparently having taken a pint of rum before, sent a sailor to the mast to take out the fire. Rising upstairs, he shouted that the fire hissed like an angry cat, and did not want to be filmed. Then the captain ordered to remove it along with the weather vane. But as soon as the sailor touched the weather vane, the fire jumped to the end of the mast, from where it was impossible to remove it.
A little earlier, on June 11, 1686, "Saint Elmo" descended on a French warship. Abbé Chausi, who was on board, left to posterity personal impressions of meeting him. “A terrible wind was blowing,” wrote the abbot, “it was raining, lightning flashed, the whole sea was on fire. Suddenly I saw on all our masts the fires of St. Elmo, which descended to the deck. They were the size of a fist, glowed brightly, jumped and did not burn at all. Everyone smelled sulfur. The wandering lights felt at home on the ship. This went on until dawn."
On December 30, 1902, the Moravia steamer was near the Cape Verde Islands. Captain Simpson, taking over the watch, made an entry in the ship's log with his own hand: “For a whole hour, lightning flashed in the sky. The steel ropes, the tops of the masts, the butts of the yardarms and cargo arrows, everything shone. There seemed to be lighted lanterns every four feet on every stay. The glow was accompanied by a strange noise: as if myriads of cicadas settled in a rig, or deadwood and dry grass burned with a crackle.
There are fires of St. Elmo and on aircraft. Navigator A. G. Zaitsev left the following entry about his observation: “It was in the summer of 1952 over Ukraine. We were descending through thunderous clouds. It grew dark outside, as if dusk had fallen. Suddenly we saw how light blue flames twenty centimeters high danced along the leading edge of the wing. There were so many of them that the wing seemed to be burning along the entire edge. Three minutes later, the lights disappeared as suddenly as they appeared.
The “heavenly fire” is also observed by specialists who are supposed to do this by the nature of their work. In June 1975, employees of the Astrakhan Hydrometeorological Observatory were returning from work in the north of the Caspian Sea. “In complete darkness, we got out of the reed beds and went through shallow water to a motor boat left two kilometers from the shore,” N. D. Gershtansky, candidate of geological and mineralogical sciences, wrote later. “Somewhere in the north, lightning flashed. All of a sudden, our hair lit up with a phosphorescent light. Tongues of cold flame appeared near the fingers of raised hands. When we raised the measuring stick, its top lit up so brightly that you could read the manufacturer's tag. All this went on for ten minutes. Interestingly, below a meter above the surface of the water, the glow did not occur.
But the fires of St. Elmo appear not only before a thunderstorm. In the summer of 1958, employees of the Institute of Geography carried out meteorological measurements under the program of the International Geophysical Year on the glacier in the Zailiysky Alatau at an altitude of 4000 meters. On June 23, a snowstorm began, it got colder. On the night of June 26, meteorologists, leaving the house, saw an amazing picture: blue tongues of cold flame appeared on the weather instruments, antennas, icicles on the roof of the house. It also appeared on the fingers of raised hands. On the rain gauge, the height of the flame reached 10 centimeters. One of the employees decided to touch the flame on the hook of the gradient rod with a pencil. At the same moment, lightning struck the bar. People were blinded and knocked down. When they got up, the fire disappeared, but after a quarter of an hour it reappeared in its original places.
Rodnya mound is located in the south of the Tver region. Its top is overgrown with coniferous forest, and local residents try not to go there, because the mound is notorious. In the summer of 1991, a group of tourists who had camped nearby observed a strange phenomenon: in pre-stormy weather, blue lights began to light up one after another over the trees at the top of the mound. When the tourists climbed the hill the next day, they accidentally discovered that some trees were equipped with "lightning rods" in the form of copper wire wrapped around the trunks. Apparently, there were pranksters who wished to somehow use the notoriety of the hill.
The nature of the fires of St. Elmo is undoubtedly connected with electrical processes in the atmosphere. In good weather, the electric field strength near the ground is 100-120 V / m, that is, between the fingers of a raised hand and the ground, it will reach approximately 220 volts. Unfortunately, at a very meager current. Before a thunderstorm, this field strength increases to several thousand V/m, and this is already enough for a corona discharge to occur. The same effect can be observed in snow and sandstorms and volcanic clouds.
St. Elmo's fires are among the ten most interesting light phenomena along with rainbows, mirages, light rings, aurora borealis and others.
St. Elmo's fires are an electrical phenomenon most commonly seen during thunderstorms. In a cloud during a thunderstorm, negatively or positively charged particles accumulate, this leads to the appearance of an opposite charge on the surface of the earth. The earth and clouds thus become connected by a common electric field, streams of charged particles pass through this space, which move at high speed. When a sufficiently large charge accumulates, a phenomenon such as lightning occurs.
If the charge is not enough for the occurrence of lightning, then if it does not have time to accumulate, since part of the charge goes to another place, then lightning will not form. In our time, this is what lightning rods are used for - the end of the lightning rod draws charges onto itself, preventing lightning from forming.
So, when such a natural charge removal, energy leakage occurs, then a phenomenon called “St. Elmo’s Fire” occurs - a spherical or other form of glow that occurs during a thunderstorm and a storm at the ends of tall sharp objects, for example, on a lightning rod, the top of a cathedral, a sharp weather vane or the end of a ship's mast. This phenomenon is usually accompanied by a quiet whistling, hissing or barely audible crackling.
Most of all, it is known about the attitude of sailors to this phenomenon. A thunderstorm and a storm in the sea is a terrible and very undesirable phenomenon, dressed in the mantle of a bunch of beliefs and signs. The sailors believed that these were the fires of St. Elmo - a message from the god of sailors - St. Elmo, who took the ship under his protection. It was believed that the appearance of these lights was good luck, the sailors believed that if these lights appeared at the ends of the ship's masts, then the ship would definitely return to its native harbor.
The fires of St. Elmo are pale blue tongues of flame at the ends of the masts and yards of ships, around planes flying through a cloud, on mountain tops, sometimes on leaves, grass, animal horns.The lights of St. Elmo are known to the “public” thanks to sea myths, which state that, firstly, the lights appear on the eve of a thunderstorm, and secondly, this is a good sign indicating that the patron saint of sailors, St. Elmo, is nearby and will not let the ship offend evil the forces of the ocean.
Saint Elm
He has several more names: Rasmus, Erasmus, Erasmus, Ermo - depending on the nationality of the sailors who honor him. Elm - in the Mediterranean, Rasmus - in the Baltic and northern countries.
Elm was a Christian martyr who was severely executed by the enemies of the Teaching for his beliefs. Born on east coast Mediterranean Sea, at Antioch in the fourth century AD, died in 303. In the Italian city of Gaeta (a district of Naples), there is still a cathedral in his honor.
Saints of sailors
- Brandan. He was a missionary, used the ship to spread Christianity, honored by the sailors of the northern countries
- Columban. Able to beg for a fair wind
- Clemens. Was tied to an anchor by the Saracens and drowned
- Gertrude. Saved a ship from a sea monster
- Anthony of Padua. Patronizes the poor and travelers
- Nivolais of Myra (Wonderworker). He understood the aspirations of the sailors, only urged them not to forget about the immortality of the soul. When there was a famine in Lycia (now southwestern Turkey), where he preached, he brought ships with food to the port
Saint Elmo's fires as a physical phenomenon
Lights ... are a point electric discharge. It happens at the moment when the potential of the electric field on some object exceeds 1000 volts per centimeter. In clear weather, the potential value is one volt per centimeter. But as thunderclouds form, the potential increases, and before the lightning strike itself, its value exceeds 10,000 volts per centimeter. Thus, the Fires of St. Elmo, or the glow of the tops of the masts, or the faint blue tongues of flame at the ends of the yards, happen only before the very thunderstorm, and even then not every, but only very strong.
Hello. In this episode of TranslatorsCafe.com, we're going to talk about electric charge. We will look at examples of static electricity and the history of its study. We will talk about how lightning is formed. We will also discuss the use static electricity in engineering and medicine and complete our story with a description of the principles of measuring electric charge and voltage and the instruments that are used for this. Surprisingly, we are exposed to static electricity on a daily basis - when petting our beloved cat, combing our hair or pulling on a synthetic sweater. So we unwittingly become generators of static electricity. We literally bathe in it, because we live in a strong electrostatic field of the Earth. This field arises due to the fact that it is surrounded by the ionosphere, the upper layer of the atmosphere, the layer that is conductive. The ionosphere was formed under the influence of cosmic radiation, mainly from the Sun, and has its own charge. While doing everyday things like heating food, we don’t think at all that we are using static electricity by turning the gas supply valve on an auto-ignition burner or bringing an electric lighter to it. Electric charge is a scalar quantity that determines the ability of a body to be a source of electromagnetic fields and take part in electromagnetic interaction. The unit of charge in the SI system is the pendant (C). 1 pendant represents electric charge passing through the cross section of the conductor at a current strength of 1 A in a time of 1 s. 1 pendant is equivalent to approximately 6.242×10^18 e (e is the proton charge). The electron charge is 1.6021892(46) 10^–19 C. Such a charge is called an elementary electric charge, that is, the minimum charge possessed by charged elementary particles. From childhood, we are instinctively afraid of thunder, although it is absolutely safe in itself - it is simply an acoustic consequence of a formidable lightning strike, which is caused by atmospheric static electricity. sailors of the times sailing fleet fell into awe, watching the lights of St. Elmo on their masts, which are also a manifestation of atmospheric static electricity. People endowed the supreme gods of ancient religions with an inalienable attribute in the form of lightning, whether it be the Greek Zeus, the Roman Jupiter, the Scandinavian Thor or the Russian Perun. Centuries have passed since people first began to be interested in electricity, and we sometimes do not even suspect that scientists, having drawn profound conclusions from the study of static electricity, are saving us from the horrors of fires and explosions. We tamed electrostatics by aiming lightning rods into the sky and equipping fuel trucks with grounding devices that allow electrostatic charges to safely escape into the ground. And, nevertheless, static electricity continues to misbehave, interfering with the reception of radio signals - after all, up to 2000 thunderstorms are raging on Earth at the same time, which generate up to 50 lightning discharges every second. People have been studying static electricity since time immemorial. We owe even the term "electron" to the ancient Greeks, although they meant something different by this - that's what they called amber, which was perfectly electrified by friction. Unfortunately, the science of static electricity has not been without casualties - a Russian scientist of German origin, Georg Wilhelm Richmann, was killed during an experiment by a lightning discharge, which is the most formidable manifestation of atmospheric static electricity. In the first approximation, the mechanism of formation of charges of a thundercloud is in many respects similar to the mechanism of electrification of a comb - in it, electrification by friction occurs in exactly the same way. Ice floes formed from small droplets water, cooled due to the transfer of ascending air currents to the upper, colder part of the cloud, collide with each other. Larger pieces of ice are charged negatively, while smaller ones are positively charged. Due to the difference in weight, the ice floes are redistributed in the cloud: large, heavier ones sink to the bottom of the cloud, and lighter, smaller ice floes gather in the upper part of the thundercloud. Although the entire cloud as a whole remains neutral, the lower part of the cloud receives a negative charge, while the upper part receives a positive charge. Like an electrified comb that attracts a balloon due to the induction of an opposite charge on its side closest to the comb, a thundercloud induces a positive charge on the surface of the Earth. As the thundercloud develops, the charges increase, while the field strength between them increases, and when the field strength exceeds the critical value for these weather conditions, an electrical breakdown of the air occurs - a lightning discharge. Mankind is indebted to Benjamin Franklin for the invention of a lightning rod (more precisely, it would be called a lightning rod), which forever saved the population of the Earth from fires caused by lightning entering buildings. By the way, Franklin did not patent his invention, making it available to all mankind. Lightning did not always bring only destruction - the Ural miners determined the location of iron and copper ores precisely by the frequency of lightning strikes at certain points in the area. Among the scientists who devoted their time to studying the phenomena of electrostatics, it is necessary to mention the Englishman Michael Faraday, later one of the founders of electrodynamics, and the Dutchman Peter van Muschenbroek, the inventor of the prototype of the electric capacitor - the famous Leyden jar. Watching DTM, IndyCar or Formula 1 races, we do not even suspect that mechanics are calling pilots to change tires to rain, based on weather radar data. And these data, in turn, are based precisely on the electrical characteristics of the approaching thunderclouds. Electrostatic electricity is our friend and enemy at the same time: radio engineers dislike it, pulling on grounding bracelets when repairing burnt circuit boards as a result of a nearby lightning strike. In this case, as a rule, the input stages of the equipment fail. With faulty grounding equipment, it can cause severe man-made disasters with tragic consequences - fires and explosions of entire factories. However, static electricity comes to the rescue of people with acute heart failure caused by chaotic convulsive contractions of the patient's heart. Its normal operation is restored by passing a small electrostatic discharge using a device called a defibrillator. Such devices can be seen in places where there are a lot of people. The scene of the return of the patient from the other world with the help of a defibrillator is a kind of classic for a movie of a certain genre. It should be noted, however, that movies traditionally show a monitor with no heartbeat signal and an ominous straight line, although in fact, the use of a defibrillator, as a rule, does not help if the patient's heart has completely stopped. It would be useful to recall the need for metallization of aircraft to protect against static electricity, that is, the connection of all metal parts of the aircraft, including the engine, into one electrically integral structure. At the tips of the entire tail of the aircraft, static dischargers are installed to drain static electricity that accumulates during flight due to air friction against the aircraft body. These measures are necessary to protect against interference caused by the discharge of static electricity and to ensure the reliable operation of on-board electronic equipment. And most importantly, scientists have come to the conclusion that we probably owe the appearance of life on Earth to static electricity, or rather its discharges in the form of lightning. In the course of experiments in the middle of the last century, with the passage of electrical discharges through a mixture of gases, close in gas composition to the primary composition of the Earth's atmosphere, one of the amino acids was obtained, which is the "brick" of our life. To tame electrostatics, it is very important to know the potential difference or electrical voltage, for the measurement of which instruments called voltmeters were invented. The 19th-century Italian scientist Alessandro Volta introduced the concept of electrical voltage, after whom this unit is named. At one time, galvanometers were used to measure electrostatic voltage, named after Volta's compatriot Luigi Galvani. Unfortunately, these devices were of the electrodynamic type and introduced distortions into the measurements. Scientists began to systematically study the nature of electrostatics from the time of the work of the 18th century French scientist Charles Augustin de Coulomb. In particular, he introduced the concept of electric charge and discovered the law of interaction of charges. The unit for measuring the amount of electricity, the coulomb, is named after him. True, for the sake of historical justice, it should be noted that years earlier the English scientist Lord Henry Cavendish was engaged in this; unfortunately, he wrote to the table and his works were published by the heirs only 100 years later. The work of predecessors devoted to the laws of electrical interactions enabled the physicists George Green, Carl Friedrich Gauss and Simeon Denis Poisson to create a mathematically elegant theory that we still use today. The main principle in electrostatics is the postulate of the electron - elementary particle, which is part of any atom and is easily separated from it under the influence of external forces. In addition, there are postulates about the repulsion of like charges and the attraction of unlike charges. The first measuring device was the simplest electroscope invented by Coulomb - two sheets of electrically conductive foil placed in a glass container. Since then, measuring instruments have evolved significantly - and now they can measure the difference in units of nanocoulombs. With the help of extremely precise physical instruments, the Russian scientist Abram Ioffe and the American physicist Robert Andrews Milliken, independently of each other and almost at the same time, managed to measure the electric charge of the electron. Nowadays, with the development of digital technologies, ultra-sensitive and high-precision devices with unique characteristics have appeared, which, due to the high input resistance, almost do not introduce distortions into measurements. In addition to measuring voltage, such devices allow you to measure other important characteristics. electric circuits, such as ohmic resistance and flowing current over a wide measurement range. The most advanced instruments, called multimeters or, in professional jargon, testers, because of their versatility, can also measure AC frequency, capacitor capacitance and test transistors and even measure temperature. As a rule, modern devices have built-in protection that does not allow the device to be damaged if used incorrectly. They are compact, easy to handle and safe to operate - each one goes through a series of precision tests, heavy duty tests and deserves a safety certification. Thank you for your attention! If you liked this video, please don't forget to subscribe to our channel!
The ship of the Russian navigator Alexei Ilyich Chirikov sailed through the northern waters of the Pacific Ocean in late autumn. The sailors were returning home after a wonderful voyage - they discovered the shores of Alaska.
The return journey was very difficult. Autumn has come with frequent storms and storms. Ships in those days, about two hundred years ago, were sailing, fragile - not like the current giants, ocean ships - and the winds carried sailboats along the waves, threw them, twisted as they wanted!
And then such a storm broke out, which even experienced, old sailors did not remember. Death seemed inevitable. The forces of the sailors were exhausted, they were no longer able to resist the frantic pressure of the raging elements.
And suddenly long tongues of flame flared up on the masts! Seeing them, exhausted people fell to their knees, thanking fate for the happy deliverance from death. Because these lights are good heralds, and they meant that the bad weather was subsiding!
Sailors of all countries and all times have seen these flames on the masts. Sailors remember them Ancient Greece, the sailors of Christopher Columbus, who discovered America, and the companions of the famous Fernand Magellan, who made the first circumnavigation and proved that our Earth is a sphere.
“Before disappearing,” says one of Magellan’s comrades, “the glow flashed so brightly that we, one might say, were blinded. We thought that now we would die, but the wind died down at the same moment.
It happened that the lights flashed on all the masts, then rolled down, ran along the deck, jumped, galloped, while, although they made a desperate mess, they did not offend anyone. They just behaved like naughty children on the ship.
These lights are also discharges of atmospheric electricity, but only quiet, harmless. They really foreshadowed the end of the storm, so it was not for nothing that the sailors rejoiced at their appearance.
Lights light up not only in the sea, but also on land, during storms and snowstorms. They always flare up on high objects - on the spiers of buildings, on the tops of trees. They are called the fires of St. Elmo. This name comes from medieval Italy, where lights often flashed on the high spiers of the church of St. Elmo, the patron saint of sailors.
