C 132 ] 



quite round the building.. In this gutter was erected 

 a fmall lanthorn, in which hung the bell of the clock. 

 A little pipe of lead was foldered to, and extended 

 perpendicularly a few inches above, the furface of the 

 gutter ; through this pipe went a fmall iron wire con- 

 lifting of many long links, connected with the tail 

 of the hammer ; paffing thence within a few inches 

 of the ftriking rod of the clock, to which it was tied 

 by a ftrong hempen firing 6 inches or more in length. 

 The lightning firft ftruck the pine-apple, the upper 

 part of which it fhivered into very fmall fragments, 

 and threw them in all directions from the place, and 

 melted off the end of one of the fpikes. It left a 

 fmoky track upon the under-part of it, and then 

 ftruck the -edge of the lead upon the plinth, which 

 it melted in two places, quite through the fubftance 

 of it. A little below thefe I found a third fpot ; 

 this was melted in a very regular and curious con- 

 cave about an _J.tli of an inch diameter at the fur- 

 face, with a fmall perforation at the bottom, through 

 which I think might have been introduced one of the 

 fin eft fort of fewing needles. The whole figure fome- 

 what refembled a fmall funnel *. It paffed thence by 

 a regular communication of metal, till it reached the 

 wire of the clock hammer before fpoken of, melting 

 it about half through its diameter, which, in this place, 

 was lefs than the twelfth part of an inch. The edge of 

 the lead pipe from which it leaped to the wire was 

 alfo much melted. The wire was melted at every 

 juncture of the links; the packthread at the bottom was 

 i>ut little injured, but the electric matter leaped through 



* Quere, is not this a token of the ftroke's being from the 

 clouds downwards ? 



a • few 



