[ 57 ] 
by the apportion of points, and the conclufions 
drawn from thence, in favour of pointed conductors, 
as caufing fimilar effeCls upon the fragments or fmall 
clouds , which, hanging below the thunder-clouds, 
have been fuppofed a kind of flopping- femes, for the 
lightning to pafs upon, towards the earth : fuch 
pointed conductors being fuppofed to occafion thofe 
fragments to retire up into the cloud from whence 
they were fufpended ; and on that account, to pre- 
vent a flroke from lightning, which might otherwife 
have happened, I fhall, for the prefent, wave en- 
tering into this philofophy, as I could with the con- 
jecture to be reconfidered ; becaufe I apprehend it is 
liable to many objections, which to enumerate would 
carry me beyond the proper bounds of fuch a paper 
as this. However, if the fame opinion fhould again 
be offered, and brought in argument, it may be worth 
while to enter more deeply into the enquiry. 
If thofe gentlemen, who argued at the committee 
for the necefity of points , could have made it appear, 
that fuch points draw off, and conduCt away, the 
lightning imperceptibly and by degrees , without caujing 
any explofion , during a thunder ftorm (which feems 
to have been once the opinion of Dr. Franklin) I 
fhould readily have fubferibed to their Report. 
But experience (hews us, that the faCt is other- 
wife : there being many inflances, where violent 
explofions of lightning have happened to con- 
ductors that were foarply pointed. And three in par- 
ticular, the accounts of which are infected in a 
publication of Dr. Franklin’s *, where the points 
* Dr. Franklin’s Experiments, p. 394. 416, 4x7, See. 
Vol. LXI1I. I were 
