PROTECTION AGAINST LIGHTNING, 6S7 



minster, which he carried out by a modification of the plan that he 

 had matured for the protection of the vessels of the Royal Navy. 

 Two-inch tubes of copper, connected by solid screw plugs and coup- 

 ling pieces, were affixed to all the more elevated portions of the build- 

 ing. The sum of £2,314 provided for the execution of this work was 

 memorable as being the first grant made by the English Parliament 

 for the protection of a public building against lightning. 



About ten years after the erection of the lightning-conductors upon 

 the Houses of Parliament at Westminster, it was found to be desirable 

 to provide a similar protection for the magnificent old H6tel de Ville 

 at Brussels, in consequence of some damage having occurred to the 

 principal tower of the building during a thunder storm. The commu- 

 nal administration of the city had recourse to the Academic Royale 

 des Sciences for advice in the emergency, and a commission, consist- 

 ing of M. Duprez, M. Liagre, and Professor Melsens, was appointed to 

 give a careful consideration to the matter. Professor Melsens visited 

 Plymouth and London, to consult with Sir W. Snow Harris, and to ex- 

 amine the plan of defense which had been adopted for the Houses of 

 Parliament. Shortly afterward the commission at Brussels submitted 

 to the communal administration the famous plan of lightning-defense 

 which has since been carried out at the H6tel de Yille, and which has 

 been described in the minutest detail in an illustrated work entitled 

 " Description d^taillee des Paratonnerers ^tablis sur I'Hotel de Yille 

 de Bruxelles," and printed in 1865, in explanation of his views, by 

 Professor Melsens himself. 



Professor Melsens's method of defense differs in one important par- 

 ticular from the measures which had been recommended in the Paris 

 instructions, and which have been most generally adopted in England. 

 He had for some time been inclined to advocate the use of numerous 

 rods of small size, rather than one dominant rod of more ample dimen- 

 sions, whenever large buildings with numerous projecting pinnacles 

 and gables were concerned. His view virtually is that the aim in such 

 cases should be to throw a sort of metallic net broadcast over the build- 

 ing, with salient points carried up into the air at all projecting parts 

 of the structure, and with numerous rootlets plunging down into the 

 conducting mass of the earth beneath ; and he contrived an experi- 

 ment which he was in the habit of exhibiting to his visitors at the 

 laboratory in Pficole de M^decine Veterinaire de I'^tat, which cer- 

 tainly went very far to justify the position he had taken up. He pre- 

 pared a spherical case or cage of stout iron wire, and, having inclosed 

 a small bird in this cage, he passed electric shocks through it from a 

 battery of fifteen very large Ley den- jars, without causing either injury 

 or inconvenience to the bird. A couple of little feathered pensioners 

 were maintained at the laboratory for the performance of this experi- 

 ment, and were subjected to the ordeal a considerable number of times, 

 and there is no doubt could be subjected to it for any number of times, 



