PROTECTION AGAINST LIGHTNING. 821 



ductor by a solid stone wall four feet six inches thick, there was fixed 

 a gas-standard of iron, which was used in lighting the church. The 

 lightning in its descent left the conductor at this point, and passed 

 through the solid mass of masonry, to reach the standard, knocking 

 out a large circular breach in the stone- work by the way. It preferred 

 to take this devious path, and to avail itself of the facilities which the 

 capacious gas-main connections of the town afforded it for the accom- 

 plishment of its escape into the earth, rather than to embarrass itself 

 with the still more onerous task of forcing its way into the dry soil 

 at the bottom of the tower, through the too briefly termiuated coil 

 of the rope. The floor and pews of the church were found to be on 

 fire the day after the storm, and some considerable mischief was done 

 before the conflagration could be stopped. This fire was almost cer- 

 tainly due to the circumstance that the gas-pipe from the standard 

 was connected with the meter and the mains by means of a short 

 length of soft fusible gas-pipe in a small basement-room under the 

 floor of the church; But, when an investigation into the cause of the 

 fire was subsequently instituted, no one seemed to be able to say 

 whether an escape of gas from the injured pipe had been lit up at the 

 time of the lightning-discharge, or whether the actual lighting of the 

 gas was due to some subsequent introduction of a burning flame into 

 the neighborhood of the gas-meter. 



The obvious method of guarding against accidents of this class is 

 the simple expedient, wherever gas-pipes are concerned, of connecting 

 the termination of the conductor directly, by means of a sufficiently 

 ample metallic band, with one of the large iron pipes of the general 

 system of the mains. If this had been done with the lower extremity 

 of the rope, in the case of the tower of All Saints Church, instead of 

 merely twisting it around a stone in the dry surface-soil, the injury to 

 the wall at the bottom of the tower, and the consequent train of acci- 

 dents which culminated in the burning of the floor of the church, 

 would have been physically impossible. The lightning would then 

 have gone through the large, open, and direct route to the mains in- 

 stead of piercing a stone wall four feet six inches thick, and leaping 

 across a small fusible gas-pipe to get there. 



The case is precisely of the same nature as the accidents alluded 

 to by Professor Rousseau. The earth communication of the copper 

 rope being inferior to that of the neighboring gas-pipe, the lightning 

 quitted the rope to get at the ground through the pipe. No more 

 striking and instructive illustration of the danger of insufficient earth 

 contacts could possibly be furnished. 



A still more curious illustration of a somewhat similar kind oc- 

 curred at Chichester, simultaneously with the destruction of the light- 

 ning-rod which has been already alluded to. The boundary of the 

 cathedral close in one direction is marked by a tall and stout iron rail, 

 which divides its precincts from the main street of the town. On 



