176 Mr. Snow Harris o?i Lightning Cotiduciors, 



ledged to be the best acquainted with this department of sci- 

 ence; and they examined various other forms of lightning 

 conductors for ships. But upon the whole evidence, they 

 conclude with an earnest recommendation to the Board to 

 carry out the plan fully in the Royal Navy*. 



No sooner had this report been laid on the table of the 

 House of Commons, than several persons interested in super- 

 seding my plan, endeavoured in various ways, notwithstand- 

 ing its ten years' trial, to get it set aside ; hence arose what 

 Mr. Sturgeon calls Experimental and Theoretical Researches 

 in Electricity, Fourth Memoir on Lightning Conductors ; 

 especially addressed to the British Association, and to all 

 learned societies in Europe and America, — a list of which is 

 ostentatiously displayed at the head of the memoir. 



Mr. Sturgeon's production having been thus paraded 

 forth, we should of course expect to find it contain new and 

 important facts in science, commensurate with so loud an an- 

 nouncement, and with its pretensions, to arrest the attention of 

 all the various learned bodies above mentioned, and as he states 

 in another place, " the ablest electricians which the world can 

 produce." After so great an advancing shadow, we should na- 

 turally expect something like an adequate substance. 



The following brief outline of the memoir is sufficient to 

 show how little such expectations are realized. 



The first five pages, consist of unhandsome insinuations of 

 a want of honesty and ability on the part of the members of 

 the Commission, of pretensions on his own part to put " the 

 question in a proper light," and of deceptive statements of 

 the nature and objects of my experiments, called by him an 



* " Having now completed our remarks on the several points to which 

 their Lordships' instructions directed our attention, we trust we have 

 shown, from the evidence *)f facts derived from the experience of many 

 years, as well as by the opinions, not only of scientific but professional 

 men, the efficacy of Mr. Harris's lightning conductors ; and considering the 

 number of lives which have been lost by lightning, the immense amount 

 of property which has been destroyed, as shown by Mr. Harris, and is still 

 exposed without adequate protection, the inconvenience which has arisen, 

 and is still liable to arise from the loss of the services of ships at moments 

 of great critical importance, the difficulty of pi-ocw-ing new S2)ars in times 

 of luar on foreign stations (not to mention the great expense of wages and 

 victuals for the crews of ships while rendered useless till repaired),— we 

 again beg to state our unanimous ojnnion of the great advantages possessed 

 by Mr. Harris's conductors above evert/ other plan, affording permanent 

 security at all times, and under all circumstances, against the injurious ef- 

 fects of lightning, effecting this protection without any nautical incon- 

 venience or scientific objection whatever; and we therefore most earnestly 

 recommend their general adoption in the Royal Navy." 



