Lightning Conductors in Ships. 351 



(d.) His Majesty's frigate Palma, commanded by Captain Worth, 

 was struck by lightning in 1814, in the harbor of Carthagena, Span- 

 ish America. The fore-top-mast was knocked over the side, the 

 lightning guttered or scooped its way, two inches deep, and one inch 

 and a half wide, under the hoops of the mast, without injuring them, 

 as far as the main deck. Here it fell upon the wet cable which had 

 been just shortened in, and was lying against the after-beam ; it 

 knocked out a piece of the beam, and passed by the wet cable out 

 of the hawse hole, the lead of which bore evident merks of the ex- 

 plosion. It was perfectly calm at the time, and the lightning, be- 

 sides striking the ship, struck also down upon the sea several times, 

 and within a short distance ol the ship. 



(e.) The packet ship New York, in her passage from New York 

 to Liverpool, was struck by lightning twice in the same day, April 19, 

 1827. The first explosion shattered the main-royal-mast and mast- 

 head, penetrated the deck, and demolished the bulk-heads and fittings 

 in the store-rooms below, — then dividing, one part fell upon a lead 

 tube, which it traversed as far as the side of the ship, and passed out 

 into the sea, starting the ends of three four-inch planks ; another por- 

 tion passed into one of the cabins, and shivered to atoms the plate of 

 a large mirror, without hurting the frame; after this, it fell upon a 

 piano-forte, which it touched with no very delicate hand, and left it 

 dismounted and out of tune ; from thence it passed through the 

 whole length of the cabin floor, which was damp at the time, and 

 out of the stern windows into the sea. 



(/.) The operation of the second explosion was very different 

 from this; — it fell upon a spike at the mast-head, and from thence 

 passed down a small metallic chain, which it disjointed and partly 

 fused, into the sea, without doing any damage to the vessel.* 



{g.) His Majesty's ship Bellerophon, under the command of Cap- 

 tain Rotheram, was struck by lightning, at sea, in August, 1S07. A 

 violent explosion took place in several parts of the ship at the same 

 lime ; the main-top-gallant-mast totallydisappeared, except tlie heel ; 

 the rigging of it was cut and burned in pieces; main-top-mast shiv- 

 ered in splinters from head to heel ; main-mast damaged, and thir- 

 teen feet of the fish on the fore-part disappeared. The explosion 

 also fell on the mizen-top-mast, which it likewise shivered ; it de- 



* This conducting chain had been set up immediately aRer the first explosion 

 happened. 



