518 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1774. 



greatly damaged Hollis-hall, in New Cambridge, observes, that Harvard-hall, 

 being furnished with pointed wires, which wires were at the distance of l6o feet 

 from the chimney of Hollis-hall, on which the lightning fell, escaped unhurt, 

 though the wires were seen by many to transmit a large quantity of it, which 

 left visible marks on the bricks, where the wires hooked together. This gentle- 

 man also observes, that a tree, standing at the distance of 52 feet from a pointed 

 wire, erected on the steeple of a meeting-house, as a conductor for the light- 

 ning, had been struck and shivered; but that the meeting-house remained unin- 

 jured; and this, he says, is the least distance from such a conductor, so far as 

 he knew, at which any thing had been struck by lightning. It appears there- 

 fore very clearly, from these instances, that sharp pointed wires, instead of in- 

 viting, and drawing down strokes of lightning, serve rather to prevent them, 

 and that they extend their protecting influence to some distance around them, 

 and ought therefore ever to be used, as the termination of the rods erected on 

 houses, steeples, magazines, masts of ships, &c. in short, on all occasions, 

 where conductors for the lightning may be thought necessary. 



I have made many other experiments, says Mr. H., on the different effect of 

 knobs or points, as opposed to insulated electrified bodies; but as they all concur 

 in establishing and confirming the opinions before advanced, it seems unneces- 

 sary to mention them ; and the more so, as I believe those already recited will be 

 deemed sufficiently decisive without them. 



XIX. Remarks on a Passage in Castillione s Life of Sir Isaac Newton. By 

 John IVinthrop. LL.D., at Cambridge, in New England, p. 153. 

 There is a passage in Castillione's life of Sir Isaac Newton, prefixed to his 

 edition of the Opuscula, in 3 volumes, 4to., published at Lausanne and Geneva 

 in 1744, which appears to be a palpable mistake; and tends to place Sir Isaac 

 Newton in an inferior light to Descartes, in the eyes of foreigners. It is tliis, 

 p. 32: " Saepiils se reprehendebat (Neutonus) qu6d res mere geometricas alge- 

 braicis rationibus tractavisset, et qu6d libro suo de Algebr^ Arithmeticae Univer- 

 salis titulum posuisset, meliils asserens Cartesium suum de re eMem volumen 

 dixisse Geometriam, ut sic ostenderet has computationes subsidia tantiim esse 

 geometris ad inveniendum." The authority he quotes for this, is Dr. Pember- 

 ton, in the preface to his View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy; but I will 

 venture to say, he has misinterpreted his author. He represents Dr. Pemberton 

 as saying, 1st. That Sir Isaac Newton often censured himself for handling geo- 

 metrical subjects by algebraic calculations. 2dly. That another thing he often 

 censured himself for, was, his having called his book of algebra by the name of 

 Universal Arithmetic. 3dly. That he commended Descartes, as having done 

 better, in giving the title of Geometry to his treatise on the same subject. The 



