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the town of Newbury in New England, in Novem- 
ber laft, I was fhewn the efFed: of lightning on their 
church, which had been ftruck a few months before. 
The ileeple was a fquare tower of wood, reaching 
feventy feet up from the ground to the place where 
the bell hung, over which rofe a taper fpire, of wood 
likewife, reaching feventy feet higher, to the vane or 
weather-cock. Near the bell was fixed an iron ham- 
mer to ftrike the hours 5 and' from the tail of the 
hammer a wire went down through a fmall gimlet- 
hole in the floor that the bell flood upon, and thro’ 
a fecond floor in like manner j then horizontally un- 
der and near the plaiflered deling of that fecond 
floor, till it came near a plaiflered wall j then down 
by thq fide of that wall to a clock, which flood* 
about twenty feet below the bell. The wire was 
not bigger than a common knitting needle. The 
fpire was fplit all to pieces by the lightning, and the 
parts flung in all diredions over the fquare, in which 
the church flood, fo that nothing remained above 
the bell. 
The lightning paffed between the hammer and the 
clock in the above-mentioned wire, without hurting 
either of the floors, or having any effed upon them, 
except making the gimlet-holes, through which the 
wire paffed, a little bigger, and without hurting the 
plaiflered wall, or any part of the building, fo far as 
the aforefaid wire and the pendulum wire of the clock 
extended ; which latter wire was about the thicknefs 
of a goofe quill. From the end of the pendulum 
down quite to the ground the building was exceed- 
ingly rent and damaged, and fome flones in the 
foundation-wall torn out, and thrown to the diflance 
R r 2 of 
