"72 ME. WILLIAM STURGEOW ON LIGHTNING 



even possible that the conductor would be the means of 

 increasing the damage, by causing the lightning to run 

 along the whole length of the yard-arm to the mast, and 

 the mast itself might then be traversed by the lightning, 

 and shattered between the yard and the conductor. The 

 sails, ropes, &c., and every article which the lightning met 

 ■vdth on its way to the mast, would suffer damage to pre- 

 cisely the same extent as if no conductor were attached to 

 it ; and men placed in, or near, the track of the lightning, 

 would be as sure to meet a death-blow as under any other 

 circumstances in which lightning entered the rigging. 

 Moreover, as these central conductors would offer increased 

 facilities for lightning to strike the masts, all the evils 

 usually attending oblique discharges through the rigging 

 to them, would necessarily be increased also." 



39. In confirmation of the justness of the views thus 

 recorded (35, 38), there has subsequently occurred a re- 

 markably prominent case, in which the rigging of H.M. 

 ship Dido was struck by lightning, in May, 1847, whilst 

 on her passage to New Zealand. " It appears by the 

 accounts fi*om the ship, that soon after daylight, there 

 being at the time heavy rain, with little wind, thunder and 

 lightning, a vivid and fierce discharge fell aloft, in a double 

 or forked current, upon the main-royal-mast ; ene of the 

 branches struck the extreme point of the royal yard-arm, and 

 in its course to the condttctor on the mast, demolished the yard, 

 and tore in small pieces, or scorched up, the greatei' part of 

 the sail. The other part fell on the vane, spindle, and 

 truck, which last was split open at the instant of the dis- 

 charge seizing on the conductor." * 



By admitting, in this case, thsU; the discharge bifurcated, 

 as has been supposed by the author of the work referred to, 



* Harris's "Remarkable Examples of the operation of capacious metallic 

 _coiiductor8, permanently fixed throughout the masts and hull, in defending 

 H. M. ships from the destmctive agency of lightning." 



