364 Conducting Rods. 



ART. XXXI. — Answers io Questions proposed to the Essex In- 

 stitute on Lightning Conducting Rods. By a Committee of the 

 Institute. \Vid. " Proceedings," vol. ii., part i., p. 164.] 



1. Has the exemption of "buildings through lightning rods, 

 been such as to justify the general confidence reposed in them ? 



To most of those who have given any attention to the subject, 

 it is a matter of surprise that any doubt should exist, that nearly 

 absolute safety may be secured by the use of rods erected on scien" 

 tific principles. 



Mr. Ebenezer Merriam, of Brooklyn, N. Y., in a communication 

 to the Journal of Commerce, says, that he recorded 39 deaths by 

 lightning, and 27 thunderstorms, in July, 1854. — "Our record, 

 says he, gives an aggregate of 750 deaths on the land for the 

 period of 14 years, only one of which occurred in a building fur- 

 nished with lightning conductors, and that one in the summer of 

 1855, at Little Prairie, Wisconsin. There were three buildings 

 burnt by lightning in this country, the last year, which were fur- 

 nished with conductors, a barn in West Chester Co., a house in 

 Richmond, Va., and the house of Mr. Van Renssalser, in St. Law- 

 rence Co., N. Y. We have in vain endeavoured to learn the 

 particulars in each case." He proceeds 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 insu- 

 lators, as the surest protection against lightning. He gives a 

 description 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, and 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 by rods, and shews 

 that the injury to the house resulted from the upward passage 

 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 uninjured. 



From events of this character, doubt has arisen in some minds 

 of the efficacy of lightning rods, when, if the causes of their failure 



