[ 61 ] 
filiations ; with the circumftances attending them, 
when we were very well fatisfied with his account, 
notwithftanding it had rained in the interim for 
th ree days together. 
It is worthy of note, that thole condu&ors did 
not terminate in a point , nor was any point put upon 
the crofs at the top. — And yet Dr. Franklin was of 
that committee. 
If points are fo eflential to our fafety, why was 
not the reafon enforced at the committee, for 
having them on that capital edifice ? For my part, 
I think it was a happy circumftance, that there 
was no point fixed upon the top of the church, to 
follicit a greater quantity of lightning at that 
moment, than what fell upon the conductors, cir- 
eumftanced as they were: as that quantity was 
great enough to heat J'o conjiderably a bar of iron, 
near four inches broad, and about half an inch thick. 
This powerful effect, reminds me of another in- 
Itance ftiil more extraordinary, which happened in 
Martinico, and is related by Captain Dibdcn, where 
a bar of iron, one inch in diameter , was by a violent 
fhockof lightning reduced in one part of it, to the 
thicknefsof a fender wire only. See Ph. Tr. Vol. L 1 V. 
p. 251. 
Since then we are at all times ignorant of the 
quantity of lightning in the earth and its atmofphere j 
and the difference in the effects, between blunted 
and pointed, ends, in caufinga difcharge in our 
ele&rical experiments, appears to be as one to twelve ; 
it is eafy to comprehend the very great danger this 
noble fabrick has probably efcaped, by having no 
pointed apparatus upon it. 
From 
