Germany
Sand Origin
Porta Westfalica
Random Sand Fact
In Germany there’s a bolt of lightning caught in sand.
When lightning strikes sand, the heat can melt the grains in a fraction of a second. Where the lightning passed, a hollow tube of glass forms.
In 1805, an estate manager found such a tube in a sand pit in north-western Germany. Put back together, it’s 5.4 metres long. No other lightning tube in the world has been assembled to a greater length.
It became the very first object in the museum’s collection, and it still stands there today.
