280 Protecting Effects of Great Fires. 



on fire. This practice has now been had recourse to for 

 three years; and during the whole of that time the parish 

 has not suffered from a thunder-storm, nor has it suffered from 

 hail, notwithstanding that formerly it used to do so every year, 

 and within the specified period the neighbouring parishes have 

 suffered from the meteor in the usual way. It must here be 

 remarked, that three years do not form a period sufficiently long 

 to enable us to pronounce definitely concerning the preserving 

 power of these great fires. I must add, that the experiment is 

 still in progress, and I shall not fail to give publicity to its re- 

 suh. 



When I alluded, seven years ago, in the ^hge of Volta, to 

 the ideas of that illustrious philosopher concerning the advan- 

 tage which might be derived from great flames during thunder- 

 storms, " I conceived that we might obtain on this point some 

 information, by comparing the meteorological observations made 

 in those counties of England, where so many high furnaces 

 and workshops transformed night and day into great oceans of 

 fire, with the agricultural ones which surrounded them." This 

 comparison has been made, and it has been found that the agri- 

 cultural districts distinctly afford evidence of a larger number 

 of such storms than the mineral ones ; and yet I do not now 

 think that the question is by any means settled. The great 

 furnaces in England abound especially where there are many 

 metallic mines ; and the rare occurrence of thunder-storms in 

 these localities may probably with more truth be ascribed to the 

 nature of the soil than to the action of those enormous fires 

 which the working of those minerals requires. In the year 1831 , 

 I had forgotten one side of the question. 



In the experiment which is still going forward near Cesena, 

 and in that of Cornwall, of which we have just been treating, the 

 object is to appreciate the simultaneous effect of a great number 

 of f res. As to a single fire, however considerable it may 

 be, we can, I beheve, prove that its action is insufficient to 

 despoil of their fulminating matter even the clouds which are 

 nearest to it, those in fact which are immediately above it. 

 Thus, we may instance what took place in the case of Vhotel 

 Mwitesson at the end of the rue die Mont Blanc, which, on the 

 1st of July 1810, was occupied by Prince Schwartzenberg. It 



