78 MR. WILLIAM STURGEON ON LIGHTNING 



and that ten thousand times ten thousand pointed wires 

 immersed in them, would never perceptibly lessen their 

 electric intensity. 



48. Every electrician of eminence kriows that fog-clouds 

 are invariably electro-positive with respect to the ground ; 

 and those who have explored them extensively can attest 

 that their electric action remains but little, if at all, altered 

 for many successive hours, and, in some cases, for whole 

 days and nights, notwithstanding their exposure to pointed 

 wires, and to the myriads of vegetable points and sharp edges 

 in connexion with the ground, most of which possess a dis- 

 charging influence equal to that of the finest -pointed needle. 



49. Facts like these, had they been collected in due' time, 

 would have furnished the eminent American philosopher with 

 views, respecting the capabilities of pointed rods, of a very 

 different aspect to those few on which he reared an hypo- 

 thesis, perhaps the most dangerous in practical science. 



50. The difference in the structure of the prime con- 

 ductor of an electrical machine, or of any metallic body, 

 and that of a thunder-cloud, is too obvious to need descrip- 

 tion. The extent also, as well as the continuous formation 

 of the latter, finds no analogy in the former. What myriads 

 of aqueous particles, each of which is a distinct individual 

 conductor, would have to be discharged by a vicinal point 

 of a wire, before those at a greater distance in a cloud could 

 suffer any change whatever ; and those still more remote, 

 notwithstanding their tendency to dispose of the electric 

 fluid they contained, in the same direction, would suffer no 

 further alteration than electro-polar arrangement, whilst the 

 still more distant localities of the cloud would remain totally 

 unaffected. Such being the only inference that can be 

 legitimately drawn from the facts, that have been collected 

 from the observations of every electrician who has made the 

 requisite explorations, there remains but little hope of dis- 

 pelling lightning storms by pointed conductors. And from 



