AND LIGHTNING CONDUCTORS. 75 



atrial effects, however, have proved to demonstration the 

 fallacy of that doctvine, which rests solely, or principally, on 

 the influence of points in conferring efficiency on lightning- 

 rods, and rendering them protective, either by dispersing a 

 thunder-storm or mitigating its effects; and have shown 

 ihat no protection whatever is to be expected by an expo- 

 sure of points at the superior extremities of conductors, be- 

 jond that which would be afforded by any other form of 

 termination. 



In the case of the Dido, the lightning struck a yard-arm 

 in preference to any of the three pointed conductors, which 

 pierced the air at a much higher altitude : and in the Fis- 

 guard, the fore and mizen conductors were disregarded by 

 the lightning, which found an easier route to the sea by 

 striking the main-mast at only a few feet above the deck. 

 And, what is very remarkable in this case, the lightning ob- 

 viously entered the boundaries of the rigging abaft the beam, 

 and Blopiag downwards from the cloud, it would necessarily 

 have to pass, at no great distance, the point of the mizen con- 

 ductor, unless the obliquity of its path was very great indeed. 

 44. Nor have these cases shown that pointed conductors 

 have any power in abating the force of lightning discharges 

 which assail the objects to which they are attached ; for the 

 damage was as extensive as could possibly be supposed to 

 occur, whatever might have been the form in which the 

 conductors terminated; and the explosion in every case was 

 terrific, especially that which occuiTed to the Fisguard, 

 which, in Lieutenant Rodd's letter, is said to have been 

 " beyond all description ; " and Lieutenant Dyke says, '' the 

 crash was most awful, just as if five hundred broadsides had 

 all gone off together."* It is also stated, that *' the officers 

 who saw the lightning strike, all agree in the fact of the 

 mast being apparently wrapped in a blaze of electric fire." f 



♦ Harris's " Remarkable Examples," &c. 



t London Illustrated News. Private Letter from the Fisgnard. 



