634 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1755, 



ceases. And the same I have observed in other instances, as to walls of brick or 

 stone. 2. The quantity of lightning, that passed through this steeple, must 

 have been very great, by its effects on the lofty spire above the bell, and on the 

 square tower all below the end of the clock, pendulum. 3. Great as this quan- 

 tity was, it was conducted by a small wire and a clock pendulum, without the 

 least damage to the building, so far as they extended. 4. The pendulum rod 

 being of a sufficient thickness, conducted the lightning without damage to itself; 

 but the small wire was utterly destroyed. 5. Though the small wire was itself 

 destroyed, yet it had conducted the lightning with safety to the building. 6. 

 And from the whole it seems probable, that if ever such a small wire had been 

 extended from the spindle of the vane to the earth, before the storm, no damage 

 would have been done to the steeple by that stroke of lightning, though the wire 

 itself had been destroyed. 



LIll. On the Effects of Lightning at Dorkin in Surrey. By Mr. William Child. 



p. 309. 



Monday, July 16, 1750, a storm arose about 7 o'clock in the evening. 

 During the preceding part of the day the air was of a very red fiery appearance, 

 accompanied with frequent thunderings. About 6 o'clock the wind rose, and 

 blew exceedingly strong, and in a very short time the hemisphere became un- 

 commonly dark ; the flashes of lightning were much stronger, and came in very 

 short intervals of time, and the thunder-claps long and loud, attended with a 

 very hard rain for near half an hour, in which time came the strongest flash of 

 lightning he ever saw, and instantly with it the most terrible burst of thunder. 

 Several persons, who were near, saw, at the same time, in different places about 

 Mr. Worsfold's house, large balls of fire, which, as they fell on the houses or 

 ground, divided into innumerable directions. 



The lightning entered Mr. Worsfold's house on the south side of the roof, 

 close in a small angle of a stack of chimneys, that stand out several feet above 

 the tiling, and falling perpendicular through the roof, met with a small crank, 

 which was in a passage between the north and south chambers : to which crank 

 hung a bell, and from the crank went a wire both ways into the two chambers. 

 It ran along the wire that went into the back or south chamber, melting it to 

 the end, and when it left it split the post of a bed, that stood in the chamber, as 

 if it had been cleft with wedges. It followed the course of the other wire into 

 the north chamber, which turned towards the east, and went partly round the 

 room, following its direction in every angle where the wire went,* till it reached 



* These wires conducting the lightning, as far as they went, confirms Mr. Franklin's opinion, that 

 if they had been extended to the earth, the great damage that ensued might have been prevented. 

 — Otig. 



