ANCIENT SUGGESTIONS OF LIGHTNING PROTECTION. 565 



were many points, similar to those which appear on the 

 Roman temples of Juno, and that pipes ran from the roof 

 to caverns in the hill on which the building was situated. 

 The Jewish historian assigns for the points the somewhat 

 prosaic function of perches for the birds, and it requires no 

 especial effort to conceive that the pipes served to lead off 

 rainwater. But, says the acute inventor of the new 

 hypothesis, the temple was never struck by lightning 

 during a thousand years; it cannot be conceded that 

 those points were put there for the benefit of the birds; 

 the ignorance of Josephus in this respect is merely "proof 

 of the facility with which the knowledge of important 

 facts is forgotten;" and indeed, it is inconceivable "that 

 the advantage to be derived from them (the points) had 

 not been calculated upon." 



Such prophets always take unnecessary pains. It would 

 have been far simpler to have said that King Solomon, 

 out of his exceeding wisdom, knew all about lightning- 

 rods, just as earlier writers asserted his familiarity with 

 the mariner's compass: although any supposition in the 

 premises has the fatal defect of ignoring the sacrilege 

 which the profoundly-devout Jew would surely have seen 

 in such an attempt to make the roof of the temple into 

 a sort of sieve to keep out the troublesome manifestations 

 of the Deity who dwelt in its sanctuary. 



The folk-lore of almost every nation has its legends re- 

 counting the drawing of fire from heaven. The skill of 

 Prometheus in bringing down the lightning (a fable which 

 sets Rabelais wondering what has become of the art), the 

 death of Zoroaster by lightning in response to his own 

 prayer, the descent of the vestal fire from the clouds, have 

 furnished many a poet with a fertile theme. Occasionally 

 the old writers are curiously suggestive: Lucan, 1 for 

 instance, when he says that u Aruns collected the fires of 

 lightning dispersed in the air and in the midst of noise 

 buried them in the earth;" or Ctesias, in his description 



1 Pharsalia, i., 606. 





