LIGHTNING AND LIGHTNING CONDUCTOBS. 15 



quarter they came, would meet with conductors without having 

 to enter the rigging, and the conductors would act in concert, 

 each branch carrying off a portion of the discharge ; and if 

 to these, other conductors were to connect the several pairs 

 of starboard and larboard conductors, either along the stays 

 or otherwise, the whole system would act in concert, so that 

 however formidable the attack might be on any one point, 

 the distribution would be general throughout the system, and 

 the discharge into the sea from each individual branch would 

 be perfectly harmless. A want of metallic connection above 

 the lower masts of the several conductors attached to the 

 masts individually, is a serious error, whatever may be the 

 cter of those conductors or the plan of fitting them up. 

 For whilst they are insulated from each other, they act 

 separately and independently, and derive no conducting as- 

 sistance whatever from each other, each having to sustain 

 the whole force of the lightning that strikes it, from the 

 point of attack to the sea. 



84. There is also an objection to the method of applying 

 the rope conductor to the mast-head, as described for the 

 Electra (77), because of the interruption that must neces- 

 sarily occur betwen the rope and the pointed vane spindle. 

 For, whenever lightning strikes the spindle, there will be an 

 explosion between it and the rope which may be sufficiently 

 formidable to destroy the rope at that place. It is even 

 probable that this was the case when H. M. ship Hazard 

 was struck, May 1st, 1846 (79), for the Report states that 

 the lightning "carried away conductor at main-topgallant- 

 head." 



85. From the fact that the points of conductors are fre- 

 quently fused by lightning, and the great probability, at least, 

 that pointed conductors predispose their localities for the 

 reception of lightning, and thus facilitate its discbarges in 

 their own direction, there appears good reason for abandon- 

 ing the employment of points altogether. For if they had 



