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1884.] On Electricity and its Present Applications. 
acquaintance or friendship. Indeed, until very recent times, 
they looked upon him more in the light of God’s minister of 
punishment and destruction than as the friendly and bene- 
ficent, though powerful, being they are now beginning to 
discover him to be. 
A wise man of America, named Benjamin, who, more 
than a hundred years ago, was among the first who had the 
courage, sagacity, and taCt to enter into close and friendly 
relations with him, by a careful study of his character and 
habits, succeeded in making an arrangement by which — in 
consideration of an easy and free passage being provided for 
him between his favourite resting-place under the ground, 
and the upper air — he gave promise for the future to refrain 
from an old and destructive practice he had been in the 
habit of indulging in, — that of toppling over and destroying 
towers, chimneys, and other lofty buildings that chanced to 
attract his notice. And the faCt of his having honourably 
kept this promise has led to a further study of his powers 
and peculiarities, and to the cultivation of more friendly 
relations with him than had been done before. 
He is constantly hovering and brooding over the earth, 
mantling and pillowing himself in the clouds ; sometimes 
marshalling them in hostile array against each other, tra- 
velling with them in their movements, and descending with 
them in union with the rain, to refresh and fruCtify the 
ground ; ascending, also, as well as descending, by secret 
and imperceptible movements, in the fulfilment of the innu- 
merable services which God has ordained him to perform. 
Though such is the usual and gentle manner of his transition 
between earth and sky, yet it sometimes happens, when he 
finds himself unduly confined on the one side, that he will 
make a sudden and irresistible bound to the other, over- 
turning, blasting, and destroying whatever may stand in his 
way, and emitting a roar of thunder surpassing in awe- 
inspiring grandeur the cries of all the wild beasts of the 
forest blended together. 
By following in the wake of the American savant electri- 
cians have succeeded in greatly mitigating — in many cases 
in entirely averting — the calamitous effects of such occur- 
rences. Knowing the partiality he has for certain of the 
family of the metals, and the willingness with which he will 
accept of their guidance and means of transport, they have 
constructed roads (literally rods) of iron, copper, or bronze 
between the earth and the highest points of the chimneys 
and lofty buildings that were wont to be injured by him. 
These rods or tubes are provided with incorrodible points — 
VOL. VI. (THIRD SERIES). 2 
