60 



MB. Wlli,IAM STURGEON ON LIGHTNING 



time. The chimney-pot was broken, a quantity of bricks 

 thrown down, and a large coping-stone displaced. The 

 lightning proceeded down the chimney, and was seen to 

 pass through the fire-grate. The soot filled the kitchen in 

 a moment, and nearly suffocated all who were within, con- 

 sisting of the landlady, and several persons who had taken 

 shelter from the heavy rain then falling; and a bundle of 

 clothes belonging to one of them was blown from the kit- 

 chen floor to the passage leading to the street door. When 

 the lightning left the fire-grate, it fell upon a gas-tube 

 which supplied a burner close to the mantelpiece; thence 

 it was led to the main (an iron tube), in the cellar beneath. 

 From this tube it burst and blew off one of the brass 

 coupling-joints, and set the gas on fire, which would pro- 

 bably have set the whole premises on fire, had my informant 

 not seen it in time, and fortunately had presence of mind to 

 turn the tap, which cut off the supply. The lightning made 

 its exit by means of the gas retort and other metalUc appa- 

 ratus in connexion. 



9. Case B — On Thursday, August 16, 1849, a dis- 

 charge of lightning fell upon the top of a tall chimney be- 

 longing to the works of William Collier & Co., machine- 

 makers, Salford. The chimney stands close to the river 

 Irwell. directly opposite to the Manchester Cathedral ; and 

 was armed with a conductor at the time. The conductor 

 consists of a series of stout iron gas-tubes, screwed together 

 in the usual way; and its upper end was then furnished with 

 several diverging metallic points — a prevailing fashion in 

 Manchester. The brick-work of the chimney was sur- 

 mounted by heavy coping-stones, held together b}' a hoop 

 of cylindrical rod-iron, which lay in a circular groove, or 

 bed, cut in the upper surface of the stones for its reception. 

 The conductor passed through the projecting moulding of 

 one of these coping-stones, and rose to about five feet above 

 the summit of the chimney. 



