1841.] On Lightning Conductors to Powder Magazines. 11 



Report by Captain Fitzgerald on the accident by Lightning to Go* 

 vernment House, Calcutta. 



To Captain Sanders, 

 No. 563. Secretary, Military Board. 



Sir, 



I have the honor to report for the information of the 

 Military Board, that the Government House was struck by lightning 

 during the storm which occurred early this morning. The lightning 

 seems to have been attracted to the building by the iron at the 

 point of the spear attached to the figure of Britannia on the top of 

 the dome ; after demolishing the spear, it pursued its course down the 

 external copper of the dome, without apparently doing any injury, 

 and forced its way into the ball room in three separate places. It has 

 left its traces on the ceiling and wall of the southern division of the 

 room, where it has injured one of the pier-glasses, and then passed out 

 at the adjoining window. Again, on the eastern side of the central di- 

 vision it has pursued a similar course, injuring a pier-glass, and again 

 passing out of the adjoining windows. On the western side of the central 

 division it has done the most injury, for after passing through the ceil- 

 ing it has broken one of the pier-glasses at its corner, then running 

 down into the marble hall, has escaped out of one of the windows, break- 

 ing in its exit, as the others also did, several panes of glass. 



2nd. I requested Dr. O'Shaughnessy to inspect the effects of the 

 lightning, and he has expressed his surprize that so little comparative 

 injury has been caused by it. The sharp point of iron at the end of the 

 spear, and the studding of the shoulders of the statue with iron nails 

 (intended to prevent birds from sitting on it) has served in the first 

 instance to attract the lightning, and that it has never been struck be- 

 fore, he attributes to the protecting power of the four conductors, 

 which, however, he considers to be twice as far from each other as they 

 ought to be. 



3rd. In repairing the statue, he recommends that the spear should be 

 made of metal, and that it should be connected with one or more of 

 the corner conductors by means of a continuous metallic rod. It 

 would perhaps also be advisable, under the circumstances above men- 



