75 



The church at Crumpsall is about a mile distant from 

 that at Kersal Moor, and the ignition of the gas by light- 

 ning, which undoubtedly cauRcd its destruction, is not so 

 distinctly traceable as it is in other cases which have come 

 under my observation, because the evidences of the passage 

 of the electric discharge have been obliterated by the fire. 

 From information, however, communicated to me by the 

 clerk in charge of the building, as to the arrangement of the 

 gas pipes, the most probable course of the electric discharge 

 was ultimately found. 



The church is provided with a copper lightning conductor, 

 which descends outside the spire and tower as far as the 

 level of the roof The conductor then enters a large iron 

 down-spout, and from thence is carried into the same drain 

 as that in which the spout discharges itself Immediately 

 under the roof of the nave, and against the wall, a line of 

 iron gas pipe extended parallel with the horizontal lead 

 gutter which conveyed the water from the roof to the iron 

 spout in which the conductor was enclosed. This line of 

 gas-piping, though not in use for some time previous to the 

 fire, was in contact with the pipes connected with the meter 

 in the vestry, where the fire originated, and Was not more 

 than three feet distant from the lead gutter on the roof As 

 no indications of the electric discharge having taken place 

 through the masonry were found, as in the case of the 

 church at Kersal Moor, it seems highly probable that the 

 lightning left the conductor at the point where the latter 

 entered the iron spout, and by traversing the space between 

 the leaden gutter and the line of gas-piping in the roof, 

 found a more easy path to the earth by the gas mains than 

 was provided for it in the drain. 



