165 



tills (?auYitry, the last year, which were furnished with conduc- 

 tors, a barn in West Chester Co., a house in Richmond, Va., 

 and the house of Mr. Van Renssalssr, in St. Lawrence Co.. 

 N, Y. We have in vain endeavored to learn the particulars in 

 «ach case.'' He f rooeeds to declare that in no other instance, 

 ashore or at sea, has any case of death been made known to 

 him. He recommends continuous rods with glass insulators^ 

 as the surest protection against lightning. He gives a descrip- 

 tion of the house of Mr. Nathan Frye. of this city, and 

 attributes the failure of the two rods to protect it, to the size of the 

 house, to the number of chimneys and the imperfect arrange- 

 ment of the rods. He gives an extract from a letter by Prof. 

 Henry, relative to the shock which visited the building of the 

 Smithsonian Institute, in which the latter declares that the 

 reports of great injury done were much exaggerated, as he was 

 in the building at the time and was not affected ; that two other 

 persons stood within a few feet of the rod and felt no shock. 



Mr. M. describes the shock that struck the house of Mr. 

 James Spillman, of Morrisania, though protected hy rods, and 

 shews that the injury to the house resulted from the tipiuard 

 f>assage of the rod from the chimney to the top of the roof^ 

 at which point the injury was done, while another part of the 

 house at which the rod descended directly to the earth was un- 

 injured. 



From events of this character, doubt has arisen in some 

 minds of the efficacy of lightning rods, when, if the causes of 

 their failure were duly weighed, the incidents would furnish 

 additional proof of their value. 



A work recently published in England, entitled " Three 

 Years in Canada," written by F. MacTaggart, Civil Engineer 

 of the British government, contains the following patriotic 

 declaration: — " Science has every cause to dread the thunder 

 rods of Franklin ; they attract destruction, and houses are 

 safer without than with them." 



As if for the express purpose of deciding this question, the 

 Nautical Magazine of March, 1853, says, " objections to the 

 employment of lightning rods have been so strenuously made, 

 that the Governor and Council of the East India Company, 

 were led to order the lightning rods to be removed from their 

 powder magazines and other public buildings, having m the 

 year IS 38 come to the conclusion from certain representations 

 of their scientific officers that lightning rods were attended by 

 more danger than advantage." 



In the teeth of which conclusion a magazine at Dum Dam, 



