XX 



Inquiries concerning the Elementary Laws of Electricity " formed the 

 subject of the Bakerian Lecture. 



In the midst of these researches concerning the general doctrines of 

 electricity, Harris had never ceased to labour at the practical question of 

 tlie protection of ships from lightning. Erroneous views on the subject were 

 then common ; highly educated men and naval officers were found to 

 affirm that lightning-conductors did more harm than good; that they 

 attracted lighting to the structure they were intended to protect, and more 

 to the like effect. A mixed commission of naval and scientific men was at 

 length appointed by Government to take the whole subject under review. 

 The committee met several times in the rooms of the Royal Society at Somer- 

 set House, and Harris was called upon to give his evidence. Dr. Wollaston 

 took great interest in the inquiry, and was present during Harris's experi- 

 ments, which were so satisfactory that the committee earnestly recom- 

 mended his system for general adoption in the Royal Navy. Still, how- 

 ever, he had much opposition to contend with. Trial had been made of 

 his conductors in the case of ten ships sent to various parts of the world, 

 and experience had fully proved their value, yet an order was given (or 

 threatened) for the removal of the conductors from each ship as soon as 

 it came into dock. But in the mean time the protective effects of his 

 system were so strikingly exhibited on shore, that the order above referred 

 to was never carried out. Some granite chimneys in the victualling-yard 

 at Devonport were in the course of being fitted with the conductors. In 

 the , case of one chimney the fittings were completed, in the other the 

 work was delayed in consequence of some adverse order. A storm passed 

 over Plymouth, the protected chimney was unhurt, the unprotected one 

 was struck and rent asunder. 



Harris's conductors now began to find favour at the Admiralty, and the 

 scientific discoveries of their inventor were at length recognized in the 

 same quarter, so that he was recommended to the Government as worthy 

 of an annuity of £300 ^' in consideration of services in the cultivation of 

 science." Prejudices against his system, however, lingered in the minds 

 of naval men and others, and in order to remove them Harris published 

 in 1843 his well-known work on ' Thunder Storms.' He endeavoured also, 

 in papers in the Nautical Magazine and in separate pamphlets, to spread in- 

 formation concerning damage by lightning. He was always on the watch 

 for an illustrative example, and once he got the trace, never gave it up until 

 he had tracked it to the ship's log deposited in Somerset House, or obtained 

 an account from the captain or one of the officers of the ship that had been 

 struck. Accounts of such casees, in the form of letters or pamphlets, 

 he caused to be circulated among persons in authority, including the 

 various foreign ambassadors ; and it may be mentioned that Harris's 

 system was adopted in the Russian Navy before it was fully admitted into 

 our own. In 1845 the Emperor presented Harris with a valuable ring and 

 a superb vase, in acknowledgment of the merits of his system. 



