1883.] Origin of Lightning Rods . 527 
acid found in the stomach of the deceased having been 
derived from apple-pips. In many cases, too, medical or 
chemical faCts would be understood more clearly by the jury 
if presented to them without the intervention of persons 
who — as may be seen on careful consideration of the questions 
in cross-examination — either in reality misunderstand the 
witness or seek to force a meaning upon his words which he 
had no intention of conveying. 
This consideration ought to impress upon experts in 
drawing out a report, and authors in writing any book which 
may be quoted in a court of justice, the necessity of extreme 
caution. Not only is it necessary to avoid every exaggera- 
tion, distortion, or misinterpretation of faCts, but every word 
should be weighed, so that it may neither be honestly mis- 
understood nor be dishonestly misinterpreted. 
III. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AND THE ORIGIN 
OF LIGHTNING RODS. 
By Colonel A. Parnell, R.A. 
S PHERE is perhaps no important social subject on which 
l educated persons in general, and scientific educators 
in particular, have such confused and indefinite con- 
ceptions as on the operation of that great natural agency 
which we in England, and our cousins in America, give the 
vague meteorological appellation of lightning , and our French 
neighbours designate under the more distinctive and accu- 
rate term of thunderbolts. The investigation of the action 
of thunderbolts forms a branch of the study of Terrestrial 
Eledtricity, a science that necessarily examines and endea- 
vours to assimilate the nature and functions of all those 
natural phenomena in which, as the result of patient ob- 
servation, the force of electricity may reasonably be held to 
take part. The wonderful, and indeed awe-inspiring, mani- 
festations of thunderbolts, earthquakes, whirlwinds and 
waterspouts, aurorae, meteors, fireballs, St. Elms’s fires, 
“ earth currents,” and the earth’s magnetism, are thus all 
dements of this most fascinating, and yet most neglected, 
