596 KEPORT— 1888. 



pieces of wire, and those pieces of wire were laid flat between wLite paper, and tbe 

 result of tlie dedagration showed upon tliat white paper. There they had a distinct 

 indication of waves— that the passage of the current through the conductor burst 

 in the form of waves. Professor Hughes, one of their best experimenters, one of 

 the most marvellous men with his fingers, had been working steadilj' together with 

 himself. The notion that they had gone upon was that in order to account for 

 heat, in order to account for light, in order to account for electricity, and in order 

 to account for the difficult crux of the whole question of the duality of electricity, 

 they would have to prove that the result of the motion in an electric current was 

 spiral, that it was of the character of a right- and left-handed screw. So that 

 when they had it going in one direction there was positive electricity, and when it 

 was going in the other direction there was negative electricity. He threw that 

 out as a suggestion which deserved to be worked out. 



He said, in conclusion, that he had done all tliat he possibly could to prove that 

 the position taken up by the Lightning-rod Conference was the true one. He had 

 shown Professor Lodge's conclusions to be in some respects fallacious. No doubt 

 Professor Lodge would say that they were not. He (Mr. Preece) felt satisfied of 

 this, that whether the result of the discussion were to establish the truth of the 

 position taken up by the Lightning-rod Conference, or whether Oliver Lodge were 

 right, at any rate the discussion would have had this advantage, that it 

 would bring to their minds what they were all anxious to see — the true theory 

 of electricity. 



Professor Oliver Lodge said he must in the first place confess that he had 

 nothing wbateA-er like the experience of Mr. Preece to base his statements upon. 

 There was not at present even a lightning-conductor to the college in Liverpool 

 with which he happened to be associated. lie had asked them to put one, but 

 lightning-conductors at present seemed to be so expensive that the answer he 

 generally got was that it is cheaper to insure. 



It was perfectly true that if his views were correct very few buildings are 

 effectively and thoroughly protected at the present time ; but then, also, if they 

 were correct, lightning-conductors would in the future be bought for, he was going- 

 to say, as many shillings as they are now bought for pounds ; but, at any rate, they 

 will become much cheaper; and that of itself would be no slight advantage if, of 

 course, they are equally effective. 



Mr. Preece began by saying that there is no authentic case on record of a 

 properly constructed conductor failing to do its duty. He had read carefully that 

 report of the Lightning-rod Conference to which Mr. Preece drew attention, and 

 there he found a large number of entire failures. There was one very noteworthy 

 one which was often quoted — a brass rod, an inch thick, on a steeple in Italy, which 

 was smashed all to pieces and the spire destroyed, the flash being seen, he believed, 

 by a number of people. There is a heap of other cases. In his lectures this spring 

 he quoted, as the best protected building in the world, the Hotel de Ville at 

 Ijrussels, on which M. Melsens had spent so much time and trouble. It was 

 elaborately protected ; it was protected by innumerable conductors with admirable 

 earths made in a variety of ways, bristling with points all over the top — every- 

 thing being carried out in the most approved style, regardless of expense. But in 

 the month of June that building was struck, and it was set on fire. The fire was- 

 put out. He was sorry he did not know more particulars. The particulars had 

 not been published, but he thought they ought to be published, because that was a 

 building the protection of which had had books written about it. M. Melsens 

 himself wrote a book about it. It should be very instructive to find out, when a 

 thoroughly protected building was struck, how and why it was done, and what 

 damage was done, and all about it. But he did not think, although he spoke from 

 a limited experience, apart from reading, that it could be said that existing conduc- 

 tors never fail. 



Then Mr. Preece had a hit at him where he admitted he had the advantage. Mr. 

 Preece quoted an entirely erroneous statement which he made. But he (the speaker) 

 had not introduced that as a statement of a mathematical calculation or anything ; 

 it was the merest parenthesis thrown in, and it was very hastily done. Of course 



