Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 
107 
tance and I regard it as the most important point—the perfect con¬ 
nection of the rod with the moist ground—because there is resist¬ 
ance in passing from the rod into the ground, and if there is a 
conducting substance in the building it may pass off over that. 
Mr. Clark. A writer in the Scientific American claims that 
there must be a metal surface nearly equal to the building. 
Mr. M. Anderson. Professor Stack of Cincinnati stopped with 
me some time ago and instructed me how to put up a lightning- 
rod. When I came to Wisconsin, I insisted that every man should 
put up a rod in the manner that Professor Stack told me. He told 
me that the highest steeple in Cincinnati was struck by lightning; 
said he told them how to put up a rod, but they all knew better 
than he did, and the church was struck. He said, never have the 
rod nearer or closer to the building than 4 to 6 inches. He said he 
would have wood dried thoroughly and boiled in oil, and then have 
this wood fastened to the building, having eyes in the wood, and 
glass insulators. 
Finally one man came along with the oiled blocks and put up the 
rods, and I feel perfectly safe in the way my house and barn are 
rodded now. I did see a rod in Ohio, on the highest court house, 
struck with lightning, but the stroke was so severe that it broke 
the point of the rod and drove it out of its socket. The rod 
entered a pool of water, and the grass was all cut off round the 
pool as if it had been cut with a scythe. Most of the rods in my 
neighborhood are copper strips nailed fast to the building. 
Professor Sterling. In regard to those copper strips; when 
the charge is small they may furnish protection, but as I said in 
my paper, the form is objectionable. The tendency of the light¬ 
ning is to go off from the edges. You can see that the particles of 
fluid according to that theory will be accumulated on the edges, 
and the tension will be much greater at the edges than at the mid¬ 
dle. 
In regard to the mode of connecting with the building, those 
oiled blocks are non-conductors. I regard that as of secondary 
importance, of no essential importance whether you have insu¬ 
lators or not. The only object is to fasten the rod firmly to the 
building. I don’t think it is true that there is a difference of 
opinion among men who have studied this subject—scientific men, 
in regard to what is essential to a conductor. The main thing I in- 
