AND LIGHTNING CONDDCTOKS. 



63 



plenty of arcbed openings near the bottom for allowing of 

 free conduction from the charcoal to the moist earth. In 

 order to expand the metallic conduction amongst the char- 

 coal, the lower end of the conducting bar was furnished 

 with a number of pointed metallic rods, which ramified into 

 every part of the carbonaceous mass. The pit above the 

 charcoal was filled up with loose earth, which was covered 

 with stone flags. 



12. The lightning appears to have struck at two points, 

 one of which was the point of the conductor, which it fused, 

 and the other was one of the leaden plates that covered the 

 opposite gable. This plate was severely rent in different 

 directions, and the leaden caps of the posts which supported 

 the conductor in its horizontal direction were also torn, 

 and some of them doubled up, and the nails which had 

 held them to the wooden posts were drawn.* 



IS. Were there no other cases known than those above 

 described, they alone would be sufficient to testify the in- 

 capability of pointed conductors, of the usual form, of afford- 

 ing protection to buildings to which they are attached; and 

 to disqualify them as guards against the attacks of lightning 

 even close to their own posts. The cases A and B are pro- 

 bably the most remarkable on record, as regards the vicinity 

 of conductors to the points struck by the lightning. They 

 afford indubitable evidence that lightning will approach 

 those conductors, and commit its ravages within a few feet 

 of them, although armed with many finely-pointed branches 

 diverging from one another, and piercing the contiguous 

 air in almost every direction. 



14. It cannot be supposed, however, that the lightning 

 in these cases passed through the air directly over the points 

 of the conductors, and shunned them in order to fall on 

 some other point of its circuit. Such an idea would have 



** Annuair* for 1838. 



