50 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



The late Charles Peirce of Philadelphia, in his statistics of the 

 weather, kept for more than fifty years, records in 1842 sixty-one 

 buildings'burnt by lightning in the United States during the sum- 

 mer of that year, and forty-six deaths from the same cause. The 

 loss in buildings which he recorded would seem to be not a 

 large estimate of the annual loss from lightning at the present 

 time in any one of our densely populated States. 



In a statistical report made by desire of the French Govern- 

 ment, and published in 1852, it appears that at that time, sixty- 

 nine persons were annually killed in France by lightning. 



Arago, on reviewing a list of more than eighty vessels injured 

 by lightning, found that "in fifteen months of the years 1829-30, 

 five ships of the English Royal Navy were struck by lightning in 

 the Mediterrenean," alone. He adds, " To those persons who 

 say that damage by lightning is of very little importance in a 

 pecuniary point of view, I would add, that the mainmast of a 

 frigate costs £200, and that of a ship of the line as much as £400. 



From a reliable statement of damage by lightning in the British 

 navy from 1799 to 1815, a period of sixteen years, it appears that 

 150 vessels were struck by lightning, 70 men were killed and 133 

 wounded, and that the loss of materials amounted to $1,000,000. 

 In 1821, Sir W. Snow Harris, F. R. S., proposed a system qf con- 

 ductors which were applied to the vessels of the navy, and in 

 1865, or after 44 years, it was found that losses and damage by 

 lightning had almost entirely ceased, notwithstanding the number 

 of vessels had been greatly increased. 



A magazine of gunpowder belonging to the republic of Venice, 

 fired by lightning in 1769, occasioned a money loss of £640,000, 

 or more than $3,000,000, and the destruction of 3,000 human lives. 

 Explosions of powder magazines have not been so unfrcquent as 

 to lead to the conviction that means for averting such calamities 

 should be disregarded. 



Without extending to greater length these notices of deaths of 

 individuals and losses of property by lightning, suffice it to say 

 the number of sufferers from such accidents is sufficiently great to 

 make it reasonable not to neglect the methods which science has 

 suggested, and experience has demonstrated useful for avoiding 

 their occurrence. 



What are the means of protection against lightning ? It is 

 related of the ancient Thracians, that when it thundered and 

 lightened they were wont to shoot arrows at the sky to threaten 



