Conducting Rods. 365 



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 {oNowing 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 em- 

 ployment 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 in the year 1838 

 come to the conclusion from certain representations of their officers 

 that lightning rods were attended by more danger than advan- 

 tage." 



In the teeth of which conclusion a magazine at Dum Dum and 

 a corning house at Mazagon, not having lightning rods, were 

 struck by lightning and blown up. But no such instance of 

 magazines preserved by rods for seventy years has occurred. 



No supposition can be more erroneous than that which ascribes 

 to a well constructed lightning rod the power of drawing the 

 thunder cloud into its vicinity. An experiment by Dr. Franklin 

 sets this matter in its proper light. He insulated a scale beam 

 hung on a vertical pivot, from which one of the scales had been 

 removed, and into the other a light bunch of cotton wool had 

 been placed. He then charged the beam with positive electricity, 

 giving it at the same time a horizontal rotatory motion over the 

 surface of a table ; when he placed beneath the scale as it revolv- 

 ed a piece of blunt iron, the scale descended towards the iron to 

 give off its explosive discharge ; but when he substituted an iron 

 point for the blunt iron, instead of descending, the scale having lost 

 its electricity to the iron point rose quickly above the table. Thus 

 a cloud, instead of approaching a forest of lightning rods in a 

 village, would be deprived of the electricity which has kept it so 

 near the earth by attraction and ascend in censequence of the loss 

 of it. 



That the confidence so generally felt in the efficacy of the pro- 

 tection of lightning rods, is not misplaced, has been triumphantly 

 proved cases in innumerable. 



