249 
RETROSPECT OF THE SEASONS. 
The year approaches its close, and our labours will cease till we be in the very 
midst of winter. It will now be pleasant, and we trust profitable, to take a cursory, 
retrospective view of the past, as thereby the reader of observation may be enabled 
to compare bygone facts and phenomena with those which are yet to come. In the 
article for December last, 1845, we offered a few remarks upon the Phenomena of 
Winter, wherein an attempt was made to excite attention to modern discoveries of 
great import, concerning the relationship which exists between Light, Electricity, 
and Magnetism. Shfce that period, allusion has been made to the science of 
Electro-culture, and we now express a hope that, by the aid of future investigation, 
some great improvement will be discovered for effecting the protection of glass 
erections ; woeful experience having proved that the comparative cheapness of the 
best and strongest sheet-glass affords very inadequate compensation for the sweeping 
devastations occasioned by the awful scourge of hail when it approaches, with a 
degree of violence almost amounting to that of the tropics. The storms of August 
have taught a lesson of grave import, which leads to the suggestion that lightning 
conductors or paragreles, ought to be erected in or near every valuable house. And 
we offer this opinion upon principle ; for, as pointed metallic rods — those of copper 
particularly — act by plentifully discharging a vast quantity of electricity, so a thunder- 
cloud may be decomposed, or rather neutralised, by the operation of induction, the 
earth giving up its electricity of a contrary character to that contained in the cloud. 
Upon this natural fact, supposing a thunder-cloud charged with what is called 
positive electricity, to pass over, and not greatly above any building, defended by an 
efficient thunder-rod, the earth immediately below will be brought by induction into 
the negative condition. Now, under such circumstances, a flash of lightning may 
fall on that precise spot, in the condition of a thunder-bolt (to the focal point where 
the two agencies meet and neutralise each other — is called) and if it do not injure 
the erection by its own violence, may be, and frequently is, followed by a cataract of 
hail. A few pointed rods will scarcely fail to attract and draw off, silently, the 
charge, and produce an entire change in the cloud ; but in order to do this, the 
rods must be connected with a perfect discharging train at some depth in the ground. 
This train, for the purposes of the garden, might consist of a number of copper or 
iron wires, about the substance of those used for ornamental figures adapted to plants 
in pots, made to radiate and branch out in every direction, in the moist earth. 
Moisture alone would be sufficient ; but in dry summers it certainly would fail, as 
it did in August last. Therefore, bearing in mind this leading fact, the main rod 
itself should be placed so deep in the ground as in some degree to insure a moist 
bed ; and then, by the aid of the branching wires, the electricity of the earth would 
be conducted to the rod, and thus be enabled to communicate with that of the cloud 
through its pointed termination. 
VOL. XITT. NO. CLV. K K 
