Means of Protection against Lightning. 125 



both as being metallic and pointed, whereby it could deprive 

 the clouds of some part of their fulminating material. Hence 

 Dutens himself, that wild admirer of antiquity, has heretofore 

 extended the idea of assimilating the Thracian arrows to the 

 modern conductors, and has traced the invention of Franklin'*s 

 apparatus as far back as the time of Herodotus. 



Pliny states that the Etruscans were acquainted with the art 

 of making lightning descend from heaven ; that they directed 

 it at their will, and that they made it strike, among others, a 

 monster named VoUa who ravaged the Volsci ; that Numa had 

 the same secret ; and that Tullius Hostilius, not so accomplished 

 in the performance of the ceremonies borrowed from his prede- 

 cessor,' contrived by lightning to destroy himself. As to the 

 means of thus invoking this all-powerful agent, Pliny speaks 

 only of sacrifices, prayers, and such like, so that we may, with- 

 out more ado, advance with our subject.* The ancients be- 

 lieved (see Pliny, lib. ii. § 56) that the lightning never pene- 

 traied further into the earth than five Jeet, Hence the majority 

 of caverns were considered by them as perfectly secure asylums ; 

 and hence, according to Suetonius, no sooner was a thunder- 

 storm anticipated than the Emperor Augustus retired into a 

 low and vaulted retreat. The vitreous tubes which are produced 

 by the thunderbolt, and concerning whose origin, as we may 

 lake an opportunity of stating, there has so long been such di- 

 versity of opinion, and which sometimes penetrate the soil to 

 the depth of a hundred feet, conspicuously shew how thoroughly 

 the ancienls had deceived themselves on diis point. No one, 

 even at the present day, knows, and far less can state, at what 

 depth there is perfect security from descending lightning, and 

 still less from ascending. 



With the purpose of adding to the guarantee, which results 

 from the thickness of a certain quantity of masonry, — of stone 

 or of earth, — with which a subterranean vault, or natural cavern. 



* Is it true that there is now in existence a Roman medal which has 

 Jupiter Elicius as its legend, and represents tliis god soaring upon a cloud, 

 whilst an Etruscan is flying a paper-kite in the air ? Duchoul has engraved 

 a medal of Augustus, in which we see a temple of Juno, the goddess of 

 the air, the pinnacle of which is supplied with many pointed stakes. Is 

 this medal authentic ^.—{Labaissieref Acad, du Gard.) 



