Bio Dr. musgrave’s Reafons for dijfenting 
every fuch inftance was not fufficiently great; which 
may happen either from the fmallnefs of the apparatus, 
or from want of care in making the experiment. 
And now if we look back upon Mr. nairn e’s experi- 
ments (which, by the by, have not all of them the merit 
of novelty) we fhall find them to be nothing more than 
different exemplifications of this well-known principle, 
that fharp points giving lefs refiftance to the ingrefs of 
the electric fluid will draw it off at a greater diftance 
than blunt or fpherical terminations, and where the 
quantity is fmall will draw it off filently. This, I fay, is 
the whole amount of his experiments; the only one of 
them in which the eledtric fluid had time to accumulate, 
being attended with a different event from the reft, and 
producing, as might reafonably be expected, a ftrong 
explofion. 
It is not, however, this Angle property of fharp- 
pointed conductors, which' muft decide the queftion. We 
have already feen, that there are two properties infepara- 
hle from them, both of which muft be taken into the ac- 
count, before we can determine the propriety of affixing 
them to buildings, particularly powder magazines, as 
prefervatives from lightning : firft, their greater propen- 
fity to admit the eledtric fluid, in confequence of which 
they adt upon eledtrified bodies at a greater diftance than 
rounded 
