28 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
Harris's Lightning Conductor, we shall find every mast of every 
ship has a strip of copper inlaid on its surface in accordance with 
his instructions, and they are now known by incontestable proofs 
to be perfect protectors against the destructive action of lightning. 
The saving of life and of treasure to the commonwealth can hardly 
be estimated. 
Looking over the list of lectures, I find that Mr. W. Snow Harris 
gave his first lecture on " Application of Fixed Conductors to Ships' 
Masts" October 21st, 1822. Not only in this connection, but 
also in the more modern applications of electricity to our daily 
necessities in the shape of the electric telegraph by sea and land, 
we are constantly reminded of Sir W. Snow Harris by quotations 
by the highest authorities of the results of his laborious researches ; 
and here again I must refer to the labour of, I think I may 
say, the most active, indomitable, and successful original scientific 
investigator that we ever had amongst us. It seems a desecration 
to call him Mr., and not Jonathan Hearder. I have a right to say 
this ; I knew him well. I have worked with him day after day, 
week after week, from early morn until late at night ; he blind, 
I halting for want of strength to follow him \ he never tiring, ever 
bright, cheerful, and cheering, devising and making new apparatus, 
discussing new lines of investigation, reviewing again and again 
old experiments on the laws of combustion, on frictional and 
voltaic electricity, making improvements in the induction coil of 
Eumkhorf, experimenting on the conductivities of metals in re- 
ference to heat and electricity, contriving and making with his 
own hands, although blind, new electrical apparatus in the shape 
of his machine for curative purposes, and in the manufacture of 
submarine telegraphic cables. 
I love to dwell on the scientific teachings of such a man, because 
I know that they produced great and good effects, and that the 
results of such labour are exhibited in the great ships that now 
plough the ocean, and make the remotest corners of the earth, the 
dwellings of our nearest relatives, easy of bodily access, and 
w r ithin almost a few hours' reach by the electric telegraph which 
he helped to mature, having predicted its Utopian performances 
long before it became an accomplished fact. 
One other name I cannot pass by, John Prideaux, one of the 
most hard-headed scientific teachers we had amongst us. His 
contributions to the geology of the neighbourhood, his instructions 
