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of the wooden table inserted to fill the holes bored by the previous
stroke of lightning. The account of the whole might seem almost
incredible, were it not attested by independent eye-witnesses.
Arago, with absolute faith in their testimony, remarks thereon that
‘those who will take the trouble of reflecting upon the thousands of
combinations which might have caused the path of the lightning to
have been different in the two cases, will, I imagine, have no
hesitation in viewing, with me, the perfect identity of effect as
demonstrating the truth of a proposition I put forward,’ namely, that
‘lightning, in its rapid march, is influenced by causes, or actions,
dependent on the terrestrial bodies near which it explodes.’ In other
words, lightning, like many other phenomena of earth, air, and
water, is influenced by unknown causes. Hamlet says very much the
same, when exclaiming:
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

After all possible explanations, Arago could get no further than

Horatio, who thought that there was much in the universe which was
‘wondrous strange.’
It does not seem impossible that some of the extraordinary
effects of lightning, either in striking repeatedly certain objects, or in
seldom or never touching others, may be explained on
meteorological grounds. The height, as well as thickness, of the
clouds charged with the electric fire, must naturally greatly influence
the direction of the latter, and though both elements vary
enormously, in different countries and at different seasons, it is likely
enough that the variation is comparatively trifling under given
conditions, as, for example, in a district where there are prevailing
winds, and where the configuration of the earth powerfully acts
upon the drift and movement of the aerial masses, and the
atmospheric conditions in general. As to the height of the clouds
charged with lightning, there appears scarcely any limit, as it has
been found that they at times rise above the summit of the most
elevated mountain ridges on the face of the globe. The great
naturalist and traveller, Alexander von Humboldt, measured the
height of a storm cloud, discharging lightning, near the mountain of
Toluca, in Mexico, and found that it was no less than 4,620 metres,
or 15,153 English feet, above the level of the sea. The height of
another, ascertained by Professor de Saussure, of Geneva, when
ascending Mont Blanc, was 4,810 metres, or 15,776 English feet, or
almost exactly three miles. Probably, these are exceptional cases, as
even in mountainous districts the heavy moist and electricity-laden
clouds seldom rise to such extraordinary heights; still, even such as
they are they do not represent the extreme limit of elevation. A
member of the French Academy of Sciences, M. De Lisle, records
having measured, by trigonometrical observations, the vertical
height of clouds in a thunderstorm, with strong flashes of lightning,
which broke over Paris, and found it to be 8,080 metres, or 26,502
English feet. Consequently, this cloud-mass, charged with electricity,
stood far above the summit of the highest mountain peak in the
world.
If some of the lightning-clouds tower at a gigantic elevation over
the earth’s surface, there are others that lie almost flat on it. There
are some remarkable observations on this kind in existence, made
by German meteorologists. Two of these deserve particular notice.
On August 27, a heavy storm burst over the town of Admont, on the
river Ens, in Styria, and the lightning, falling upon the lower part of
the great convent of the Benedictines, and passing through the wall,
killed two young priests near the altar, while reading vespers. The
convent lies, like the town of Admont, in a valley, and above it, some
three hundred feet higher, stands a castle, in which resided at the
time a German professor, specially interested in the phenomena of
thunderstorms. He watched assiduously the coming storm, and saw
the lightning fall upon the great convent, noticing all the while that
the gilded cross placed on the belfry of the edifice, about 115 feet
from the ground, remained standing out clear above the electric
cloud, which appeared to come close to the earth’s surface. He
noticed further that above this cloud, enveloping the ground portion
of the Benedictine convent, there hovered another, more than two
thousand feet higher, and at intervals he could see streaks of
lightning fly from between the two, not however from the more
elevated to the lower one, but in a contrary direction. It was evident
that the two clouds must have been charged by electric forces of
different ‘degree,’ or ‘potential;’ it may be, one of a ‘negative’ and
the other of a ‘positive’ kind, or, as Benjamin Franklin termed them,
‘plus’ and ‘minus;’ although, as long as the forces differ in ‘degree’ or
‘potential,’ it is not essential that they be of opposite kinds. As the
marvellously sagacious discoverer of the lightning conductor
surmised, the wondrous force is really unitarian—that is, throughout
the same, the term ‘kind’ really only indicating on which side of an
assumed zero (the potential of the earth) the observations or
measurements are made.
Another notable instance of low-lying storm-clouds, and which
furnished the rare opportunity of measuring the thickness of one of
them, occurred at the city of Gratz, Austria, on June 15, 1826. The
city is built along the side of a hill, the highest point of which, called
the Schlossberg, has on its summit a castle, now in ruins, but at the
time garrisoned by troops, and furnished with a small observatory.
When the storm in question broke over the city, several scientific
men on the Schlossberg took notes of the movement and direction
of the great cloud emitting its electric discharges. This they could
easily do, as they themselves, on their altitude, were standing in
sunshine, under a perfectly blue sky, the dark cloud-wave rolling
deep under their feet, indicating its path and size by streams of fire,
following each other in rapid succession. Exclusive of short flashes,
vanishing in the air as soon as seen, there fell nine great strokes of
lightning upon buildings in the city, in the course of about three
quarters of an hour, five of them causing conflagrations and killing a
number of people. The storm over, the observers compared their
measurements, and it was then found that the height of the storm
cloud had never been above the clock-tower of the Johanneum, an
edifice connected with the university, and containing a library and
museum, while the lowest part of it had gone down the sloping
ground of the city no further than 120 feet under the summit of the
clock-tower. This, then, was the exact thickness of the storm-cloud
which had caused so much destruction. It was noticed on this
occasion, as had been done often before, that the discharges of
lightning fell all upon buildings standing on moist ground, near the
river Mur, a mountain stream coming from the Noric Alps, and
dividing the city into two parts. There can be no doubt, from
thousands of observations made, that it is one of the characteristics
of the electric force to seek its way towards water—to be, as it were,
dissolved by it, or, as perhaps it might be said more truly, to be
equalised by it. A very remarkable electrical phenomenon, and one
which is often attended with fatal results to men and animals, is
what is known as the ‘return stroke’ of a lightning discharge. This is
always less violent than the direct stroke, but is nevertheless very
powerful. It is caused by the inductive action which a thunder-cloud
exerts on bodies placed within the sphere of its activity, and
disastrous effects often take place upon objects, upon men and
animals on the earth under the cloud, although perhaps miles away
from the point where the discharge takes place. These bodies are,
like the ground, charged with the opposite electricity to that of the
cloud; but when the latter is discharged by the recombination of its
electricity with that of the ground, the induction ceases, and all the
bodies charged by induction return to a neutral condition. The
suddenness of this return constitutes the dangerous ‘return stroke.’
Lord Mahon was the first to demonstrate by experiment its mode
of action; as shown in the following illustration.
 A B C is the electrified cloud, the two ends of which come near
the earth. The lightning discharge occurs at C. A man at F is killed by
the return stroke, while those at D, nearer to the place of discharge,
but further from the cloud, receive no injury. It may be mentioned
that it was the action of the return shock upon the limbs of a dead
frog in Galvani’s laboratory that led to the Professor’s experiments on
animal electricity, and further to the discovery by Volta of that form
of electrical action which bears his name.
The subject of the origin of atmospheric electricity has at all
times been a favourite source of speculation with scientific
investigators, and given rise to numerous hypotheses. The eminent
Swiss savant, Professor de Saussure, already referred to, held that
all atmospheric electricity was due to the evaporation of the waters
of the globe through the effect of the sun. To prove this, he made a
great number of experiments, showing that whenever water,
whether pure or containing more or less salt, whether acid or
alkaline, is projected upon a metal crucible heated to redness, the
evaporation that takes place immediately is accompanied by strong
liberation of electricity. The fact is undisputed by scientific men, but
not so the conclusion. Another eminent savant, no less distinguished
than De Saussure, Professor De la Rive, in taking up the experiments
of the former, succeeded in showing that the production of
atmospheric electricity by throwing water upon heated metal was
not the simple effect of evaporation, but due to chemical causes.
Of the numberless attempts made to elucidate the phenomena
of electricity, in connection with the formation of thunderstorms,
none seem more worthy of regard, and of thoughtful consideration,
than those of Jean Athanase Peltier, a French savant, little known to
the general world. Born in 1785, he occupied his whole life, until his
death in 1845, with the study of meteorology and electricity, making,
among others, the important discovery that a current flowing
through a circuit composed of two metals joined together heats or
cools the junction according to the direction of the current. From all
the experiments upon the phenomena of electricity, to which he
devoted his life, Peltier drew the conclusion that the earth itself, and
more particularly the fiery liquid mass forming the inner bulk of it,
over which the solid crust and the ocean lie, but both thinner in
comparison than the skin of an apple, form one immense reservoir
of electricity. As light comes from the sun, generated, as we believe,
by heat, so the electric force, he held, comes from the interior of the
globe, likewise generated by heat. The atmosphere surrounding the
globe, Peltier asserted, produced no electricity whatever, nor held it,
except temporarily. But he thought it possible that it might exist,
engendered by other flaming masses than those of the earth’s
interior, in the interminable planetary spaces, which no astronomer
can measure, and of which imagination itself, in its loftiest flights,
can form no more conception than the finite ever can of the infinite.
On the whole, Peltier’s explanation, such as it is, may fairly be
accepted, in the present state of the scientific investigation, as one
of the best that can be given. For the rest, men must content
themselves to study the phenomena of electricity, and to regard it
simply as one of the great, if mysterious, forces of nature.
 CHAPTER VII.

INQUIRIES INTO LIGHTNING PROTECTION.

From our present ignorance of the actual nature of electricity,

admitted alike by all scientific men, it has often been argued that no
claim can be set up for a perfect protection against the effects of the
electric force called lightning, since we do not know ‘whence it
comes, nor whither it goes.’ That this argument is entirely fallacious,
may be easily shown. The human mind does not understand, any
more than it does electricity, the great forces called centripetal and
centrifugal, which keep millions of suns and of planets in their path
through the boundless universe; yet there is no educated man who
doubts that astronomers are able to calculate, with the greatest
mathematical precision, the time when two particular stars will come
near each other, when the moon will obscure Orion, and Venus make
her transit across the sun. Again, no explanation can be given of the
actual nature, of the Why and the Wherefore, of the force called
gravity, simply in its operation on our globe. Still men can calculate,
with the greatest nicety, the result of any given weight, falling, from
any given height, on the surface of the earth or below it.
François Arago, reasoning on the disputed efficiency of lightning
conductors, puts another indisputably practical case. ‘If,’ says he, ‘we
take the dimensions to be given to conductors from experience, and
if those which we adopt have been found to resist the strongest
lightning recorded for over a century, what more can reasonably be
asked for?’ When the engineer decides on the height and width of
the arches of a bridge, the vault of an aqueduct, the section of a
drain, and similar constructions, what does he concern himself with?
He examines all the facts and records on the matter as extensively
as he can, and, in making his plan, keeps somewhat beyond the
dimensions dictated by the greatest floods and the heaviest rains
which have ever been observed. He thus goes as far back in his
research as the evidence within his reach will enable him to do, but
without confusing himself either with searching for the hidden
causes of floods and rains, or with investigating the character of the
physical revolutions, or the cataclysms which occurred in prehistoric
times, and of which geologists only have been able to discover the
traces and estimate the magnitude. So with the engineer. Greater
precaution or foresight than his cannot be demanded from the
constructor of lightning conductors, nor is any needed.’
It may be laid down as an absolute fact, that a well-made
lightning conductor, properly placed, and kept in an efficient state,
can never, under any circumstances, fail in its action. Undoubtedly it
has happened that buildings to which conductors were attached
have, in many instances—of which some will be enumerated in
another chapter—been struck by lightning, and even damaged; but
these cases, so far from going against the truth that good lightning
conductors are infallible, only serve to prove it. A close investigation
of all known instances where the electric force has struck buildings,
nominally protected against lightning, shows most conclusively that
the conductors placed on them were either inefficient, in some way
or the other, or did not lead properly into moist ground—that is, had
not the all-indispensable ‘earth connection.’ There is no case on
record in which a really efficient lightning conductor, properly placed,
and with its terminal in technically so-called ‘good earth,’ did not do
its duty; and without being dogmatic on the subject, it may well be
asserted can no more fail to give protection than an efficient drain-
pipe can fail to carry off the water upon the roof. Although the
electric force is neither a ‘current’ nor a ‘fluid,’ often as it is so
described, still the analogy holds good so far as the one here given
between the drain-pipe and the conductor. And the reason is clear
enough. The water, in running down a hollow tube, obeys simply the
law of gravity, but no less immutable than this is that which governs
the movement of the electric force. As the water has no choice but
to follow the channel made for it, under the guidance of experience
and mathematical calculation, so has the emanation of the electric
energy no option but to pursue the path which scientific
investigation has shown it always to take. Men may speak of ‘erratic’
lightning; but it is certain that the course of the electric force is as
subject to cosmic laws and as immutable as that of the stars.
Most of the experiments and investigations for ascertaining the
best form of lightning conductors, and their application to buildings
so as to be invariably efficient, have been carried on by private
activity; still, the subject has also, at various times, undergone the
examination of official authorities, as well as of learned societies.
Little has been done in this respect in England, but very much in
France, where, ever since the publication of Franklin’s great
discovery, the question of protection against lightning has uniformly
interested the public, as well as the learned world, leading to the
production of more treatises on the subject than in any other
country, except perhaps Germany, the world’s centre of book-
making. One of the most important of the French works here
referred to, and which may be regarded as the standard work on
lightning conductors, is a semi-official publication, entitled
‘Instruction sur les paratonnerres,’ issued in new editions from time
to time, and widely dispersed, not only in France, but all over Europe
and America. It consists of several reports about lightning
conductors made, from 1823 to 1867, by committees comprising
some of the most distinguished men of science at the time, to the
‘Académie des Sciences’ of Paris. The earliest of these reports
originated from an application of the French Government to the
‘Académie.’ In the year 1822, there happened to be in France, and
over the greater part of Continental Europe, an extraordinary
number of violent thunderstorms, accompanied by earthquakes and
simultaneous eruptions of Mount Vesuvius, the latter on a scale not
witnessed for centuries. In France, the almost continuous
thunderstorms caused great alarm among the population; and the
priests in many places held processions in and around the churches,
with special prayer-meetings, to ‘appease the wrath of heaven.’ In
consequence of all this excitement, the Minister of the Interior,
deeming that something also ought to be done besides the walking
in procession to stay the fatal effect of lightning, ordered that all the
public buildings in France should be protected immediately by
conductors, made on the most perfect model and placed in the best
manner. To get pre-eminent advice as to the efficiency of lightning
conductors, the Minister applied officially to the ‘Académie des
Sciences,’ which learned body thereupon nominated a committee
consisting of six of the most celebrated investigators of the
phenomena of electricity—MM. Poisson, Lefèvre-Gineau, Girard,
Dulong, Fresnel, and Gay-Lussac. The committee held many sittings,
collecting a vast amount of evidence on the subject, and on April 23,
1823, presented through M. Gay-Lussac its report to the ‘Académie
des Sciences,’ which was adopted and ordered to be printed, being
declared a highly important document. The French Government took
the same view as the ‘Académie des Sciences,’ and not only acted
upon the recommendations of the report, but issued it to all public
functionaries, to the clergy, and others, with directions to make it
generally known. In this way hundreds of thousands of copies of the
‘Instruction sur les paratonnerres’ found their way all over France,
and from thence in translations all over Europe, as the best existing
guide for the erection of lightning conductors.
The information thus spread by the French Government gave
rise to important results. It caused the setting-up of lightning
conductors throughout the country, on private as well as public
buildings, and it likewise led to an improved construction of them, in
as far as the ‘Instruction’ recommended the rods to be made of
stout pieces of metal, well fastened to each other, and, above all, led
into the ground deep enough to reach moist earth or water. If this
was well enough, and useful enough, to meet with general
acceptation, there were some points in the advice of the learned
men of the ‘Académie’ that gave rise to much criticism, as being
more founded upon theory than practical experience. In the first
place, they laid it down as a hard-and-fast rule that the upper rod of
a lightning conductor—that projecting over the roof—‘will be an
efficient protective against lightning within the circular area of a
1
radius double that of its height,’ and the acquiescence in this
supposed absolute formula had for one of its results the erection of
monstrously huge rods, made to tower high above buildings, so as
to increase the field of protection to the largest possible extent.
Another and worse fault was committed by the authors of the
‘Instruction’ in not saying anything about the necessity of regularly
inspecting the actual condition of lightning conductors, and testing
them in respect to their efficiency. While giving minute advice as to
the mode of construction and the general design of conductors, the
contents of the ‘Instruction’ were such that, on the whole, its
readers would take it for granted that it was only necessary to
properly join the strips of metals and bring them down into the
ground, after which, thenceforth and for ever, the protection against
lightning would be complete. This grave omission, together with the
erroneous dogma as to absolute rule of protection within an area
prescribed by the height of the ‘tige,’ or upper part of the rod, had
the inevitable result of causing disasters, and before the ‘Instruction’
had been issued many years, there came report after report to the

1
The original, long taken as a scientific dogma, runs:
‘Une tige de paratonnerre protège efficacement contre la
foudre autour d’elle un espace circulaire d’un rayon double
de sa hauteur.’

Government that well-constructed lightning conductors had

failed to do their duty. For a length of time these reports were either
not believed in, or the failure ascribed to partial non-compliance with
the strict rules laid down by the ‘Académie des Sciences.’ However, in
the end, when thirty years had passed, the instances of buildings
with conductors being struck became so numerous, that it was
impossible to ignore them any longer and, flying once more for
advice to the savants of the ‘Académie des Sciences,’ the French
Government desired them to investigate anew the question as to the
best means of protecting buildings against lightning. Complying with
the behest, the learned body nominated again a committee of six,
the names of those selected comprising the most eminent men who
had made electricity and its phenomena their study. They were MM.
Becquerel, Babinet, Duhamel, Despretz, Cagnard de Latour, and
Pouillet.
The ‘Instruction’ of the new committee, drawn up by Professor
Pouillet, was read before the ‘Académie des Sciences’ on December
18, 1854, and having been unanimously approved, was, like the
former one, taken up by the Government and extensively circulated.
The report began by modestly excusing the short-coming of its
predecessor. ‘For the last thirty years,’ Professor Pouillet remarked,
with no fear of being gainsaid, ‘the science of electricity has made
great progress—in 1823 the discovery of electro-magnetism had only
just been made, and none could foresee the immense results that
would spring from its revelations.’ Based upon these grounds, the
new ‘Instruction’ entirely reversed many of the conclusions of the old
one. First of all, it declared inadmissible the theory of a fixed area of
protection, to be calculated by the length of the upper rod. ‘Such a
rule,’ Professor Pouillet justly remarked, ‘cannot be laid down with
any pretence to accuracy, since the extent of the area of protection
is dependent from a mass of circumstances—such as, among others,
the shape of the building and the materials entering into its
construction. It is clear, for example, that the radius within which the
conductor gives protection cannot be so great for an edifice the roof
or upper part of which contains large quantities of metals, as for one
which has nothing but bricks, wood, or tiles.’ Professor Pouillet then
proceeded to give detailed instructions in respect to the design and
mode of manufacturing lightning conductors. He insisted that the
rods should be of greater capacity than those recommended by Gay-
Lussac in the report of 1823, and that there should be as few joints
as possible from the point to the earth. He considered it of the
greatest importance that all the joints should be carefully tin
soldered, otherwise the metallic continuity of the conductor could
not be assured. He also advised that the top of the air-terminal
should not taper to so fine a point as formerly, but be rather blunt. A
lightning conductor, said Professor Pouillet, is destined to act in two
ways. In the first place, it offers a peaceful means of communication
between the earth and the clouds, and by virtue of the power of
points the terrestrial electricity is led gently up into the sky to
combine with its opposite. In the second it acts as a path by which a
disruptive discharge may find its way to the earth freely. In the latter
case he considered there was a risk of a sharply tapered point
becoming fused, and recommended that the angle of the cone at the
top of the air-terminal should be enlarged. He also advised that the
point should be made of red copper instead of platinum, and based
his argument on the fact of copper being a better conductor of
electricity than platinum, and considerably cheaper. A copper point,
remarks M. Pouillet, subjected to a heavy stroke of lightning, would
be much less heated than a platinum point, and would scarcely in
any case be fused. While in the report of 1823, iron ropes were
recommended almost exclusively as the best material for conductors
for ships, the ‘Instruction’ of 1854 declared strongly in favour of
copper as the far superior metal for the purpose. ‘Copper,’ affirmed
Professor Pouillet, ‘is superior to iron as well as to brass for the
purpose of lightning conductors, it having the advantage not only of
being less influenced by atmospheric agencies, but the still more
important one of allowing a freer passage to the electric force of
over three to one. Copper should therefore be exclusively used in
the construction of lightning conductor cables for the protection of
ships.
The inquiries into lightning protection instituted by the ‘Académie
des Sciences,’ and resulting in two reports, the second valuable in
the highest degree, had the good effect, not only of drawing public
attention to the necessity of providing such safeguards, but of
bringing the whole matter under due scientific control. Henceforth
the ground was cut away under ‘lightning-rod men,’ perambulating
towns and villages, and offering their trumpery ware—mostly bits of
wire tied together, with perhaps a lacquered piece of wood on the
top—to credulous persons, as a substitute for good conductors. The
French Government set a laudable example in appealing for the
future always to scientific aid. A few months after the publication of
the ‘Instruction sur les paratonnerres,’ drawn up by Professor
Pouillet, a decision was come to for protecting the new wings of the
Louvre, at Paris, with the most perfect lightning conductor that could
be made, and thereupon appeal for counsel was once more made to
the ‘Académie des Sciences.’ The case was one of special interest.
The palace of the Louvre, with its inestimable treasures of art, had
been the first public building in France provided with a lightning
conductor. It was due to the initiative of an enthusiastic admirer of
Benjamin Franklin, David Le Roy, that this was accomplished, he
having excited the public feeling as to the dangers from lightning to
which the Louvre was exposed to such a degree as to compel the
Government, in 1782, to carry out his plans, under his own
superintendence. The conductors erected by Le Roy had stood the
test of experience from 1782 until the year 1854, many a
thunderstorm having passed over the extensive buildings of the
Louvre without causing the least damage. But, in the last month of
1854, one more lightning cloud swept along the banks of the river
Seine, and the electric fire, falling on one of the chimneys of the
palace, knocked off a few bricks. The damage was very trifling, but
the alarm nevertheless was great, and very naturally so. If there was
one building in France, it was said, which ought to be beyond the
risk of being struck by lightning, it was the Louvre, and, if this could
not be accomplished, the art of constructing protective conductors
was altogether vain and ineffectual. It was under these
circumstances, incited by the public outcry, that the Government
hastened to submit the new case to the ‘Académie des Sciences.’
Once more the ‘Académie’ nominated a committee on lightning
conductors, composed of the same members who had signed the
‘Instruction’ of 1854, and drawn up by Professor Pouillet. He again
drew up the report, which was adopted by the ‘Académie’ on
February 19, 1855, and contained some notable additions to the
directions previously given. They related, as was desired, in the first
instance to the Louvre alone, but were made applicable to all large
public buildings. For their efficient protection, the professor insisted,
two things should be kept in view above all others—namely, first,
that the point, always of copper, should be of greater thickness; and,
secondly, that it should have a never-failing connection with either
water or very moist earth. To ensure the latter, it was recommended,
as had been done before, that the underground part of the
conductor should be divided.
The necessity for such a division, and for forming at least two
subterranean arms—the first of it, described as ‘the principal branch,’
going very deep into ground, into perennial water, and the second,
‘the secondary branch,’ running nearer the surface—was explained
by Professor Pouillet very clearly in this last report. ‘After a long
continuance of dry weather,’ he observed, ‘it often happens that the
lightning-bearing clouds exert their influence only in a very feeble
manner on a dry soil, which is a bad conductor; the whole energy of
their action is reserved for the mass of water which by percolation
has formed below it. It is here that the dispersion of the electric
force (la décomposition électrique) takes place; it will follow the
principal branch of the conductor underground, and leave the
secondary branch untouched. The case is entirely different when,
instead of dry weather, there have been heavy rains, moistening the
earth thoroughly, up to the surface. It is the latter now that is the
best, because the nearest, conductor of the electric force, which will
not go to the more permanent sheet of water, lying more or less
deep in the ground, if there is moisture above it. Under these
circumstances, it is indispensable that there should be a direct
connection between the surface soil and the lightning conductor, and
this is what is accomplished by the secondary branch. It is a power
in aid of the principal branch, and one often of the highest
importance.’ The suggestion here made was one so evidently good,
that it was at once accepted by the French Government, and the
Louvre not only, but other public buildings, received lightning
conductors ending in two subterranean branches, as proposed by
Professor Pouillet.
The report on the protection of the Louvre Palace did not contain
the last inquiry of the ‘Académie des Sciences’ on the subject of
lightning conductors. Twelve years after it had been issued, the
Government of France once again called upon that learned body for
advice as to the best mode of protecting powder magazines. Several
cases had happened—among others at Rocroy, on the borders of the
forest of Ardennes—of such buildings being struck, notwithstanding
that they had conductors placed upon them, and the Government,
naturally alarmed, made inquiry as to whether nothing could be
done to ensure protection against lightning, infallible under all
atmospheric conditions and every possible emergency, to these
dangerous stores. The demand was made in a letter of the Minister
of War, Marshal Vaillant, dated October 27, 1866, pressing the
‘Académie’ to give another ‘Instruction,’ without delay, the
Government being ‘in fear that some of the powder magazines are
not as completely protected from lightning as could be wished.’
Thereupon the ‘Académie des Sciences’ nominated another
commission, this time of eight members, including the Minister of
War himself—not complimentary, but as being an author, and with a
warm interest in electrical science; and, besides him, MM. Becquerel
Sen., Babinet, Duhamel, Fizeau, Edmond Becquerel, Regnault, and
Professor Pouillet. The list represented a galaxy of names
unsurpassed in the investigation of such a subject as lightning
conductors, looked upon in most countries of Europe, at least in
recent years, as rather plebeian, to be left to builders and lightning
rod men. Many sittings were held by the committee, all fully
attended, so that, although the Minister had desired to get the new
report ‘le plus promptement possible,’ it was not till nearly three
months after the receipt of his message that it was completed,
Professor Pouillet again being the author. It was a most remarkable
paper, this one, read before and approved of by the ‘Académie des
Sciences’ on January 14, 1867.
 Before entering upon the subject of the protection of powder
magazines against lightning, the new ‘Instruction’ signed by
Professor Pouillet and his colleagues laid down a few so-called
‘propositions générales‘—that is, either hints, suggestions, or
statements, the French word ‘proposition’ being most serviceably
vague for use—on the subject of lightning and of thunderstorms.
The first thesis affirmed that ‘clouds which carry lightning with them
are but ordinary clouds (ne sont autre chose que des nuages
ordinaires) charged with a large quantity of electricity.’ The second
thesis boldly defined the nature of lightning. ‘The fire which flashes
from the skies is an immense electric spark, passing either from one
cloud to another, or from a cloud to the earth; it is caused by a
tendency for the restoration of the electric equilibrium (la
recomposition des électricités contraires).’ It was laid down in the
third ‘proposition’ that, when lightning falls from a cloud upon the
earth, it is but an effort of the electric force to return to its grand
reservoir. That it is similar to water, which, having risen in the form
of vapour from the earth-surrounding ocean high up into the air,
then falls down as rain upon hills and plains, and finally runs down
again in rivers to the ocean, Professor Pouillet did not say in so
many words; but there were vague hints to that effect in the new
‘Instruction.’ Its practical recommendation, offspring of the theories
thus enunciated, was that the best protection against lightning
would be afforded by the most substantial metal rods, made of iron,
surrounding a building on all sides, and passing deep into the
ground. The new declaration of the ‘Académie des Sciences,’ though
merely a repetition of former reports, was not without important
consequences. First in France, and then in other countries, the
conviction became general among scientific men, and others well
informed on the subject, that well-designed conductors, if properly
made and kept in good order, form an absolute, unconditional, and
infallible protection against lightning.
Professor Pouillet also laid it down that lightning conductors, to
be efficient, must be regularly inspected, he, with his colleagues on
the committee, having come to the conclusion that such examination
should take place at least once every year. So much stress was laid
upon the importance of an annual inspection, that a strong
recommendation was made to the Government to have a procès-
verbal, or special report, drawn up on each occasion in the case of
all public buildings, so that it might be known by the central
authorities whether the examination had taken place at the specified
time, and what had been the declaration of the examiners. The
advice was judiciously followed, with the result that at this moment
the public buildings of France have the most complete protection
against lightning—greatly in contrast with the public buildings in
England.
 CHAPTER VIII.

SIR WILLIAM SNOW HARRIS.

In singular contrast with what took place in France, the importance

of lightning conductors never created any but the most languid
interest in England. Neither the Government, nor any of the scientific
bodies of the country, at any time occupied themselves seriously
with the question as to how public and private buildings might be
best protected against the dangers of thunderstorms; and from the
time, a century ago, when the Royal Society half patronised and half
spurned the merits of Franklin’s discovery, to this day, the battle of
science against ignorance in the matter had to be fought by
individuals. With one exception, that of Sir William Snow Harris, it
proved no profitable battle to any man; and in his case even, it was
only so by accident. Born at Plymouth, in 1792, and educated for the
medical profession, he early turned his attention to the subject of
electricity and lightning conductors, and more particularly to the use
of them in the Royal Navy. Owing to his early surroundings, leading
to connection with naval officers, he learnt that the damages caused
by lightning to ships of war were very numerous, and most
expensive to repair; and having got once hold of these facts, he
gave them to the public in the ‘Nautical Magazine,’ but chiefly in
pamphlet form, insisting upon the simple remedy of lightning
conductors. As usual, the Government lent a deaf ear to the
proposal as long as it was possible, and it was only when at length,
in 1839, the outcry upon the subject became overwhelming, that a
naval commission was appointed ‘to investigate the best method of
applying lightning conductors to Her Majesty ships.’ The commission
drew up an immense report, filling eighty folio pages of a blue-book,
the kernel of which was that, though such protectors in
thunderstorms were rather new-fangled things, they might be tried
without special harm coming to anybody. Thereupon most of the
vessels received lightning conductors, made after designs by Mr.
Snow Harris. The indefatigable advocate of conductors had his
reward. He was knighted in 1847; he had, at various times,
considerable grants from the Government; and he had the final
satisfaction of being allowed to design lightning conductors for the
new Houses of Parliament. The latter remain the most enduring
monument of the only man in this country who ever succeeded in
drawing the attention of the public and the Government to the grave
subject of lightning conductors. He could not have done so, at least
not in the line he took up, had he lived half a century later. With the
gradual disappearance of the old wooden ships disappeared also the
necessity of lightning conductors for men-of-war. An iron-built
vessel, metal-rigged, is a conductor by itself, while as to armour-clad
ships of latest design, they are more absolutely protected against
lightning even than the famous gilded temple of Solomon at
Jerusalem.
In the story of the progress of lightning protection in England,
the career of William Snow Harris forms a chapter of no little
interest, as showing both the inertness of the administration, as well
as of the public, in the most important matters, and the good effects
that may result from the persevering energy of a single man. When
Mr. Snow Harris began his agitation for lightning conductors, about
the year 1820, the ships of the Royal Navy were virtually without
them, although they had something supposed to stand in their
place. Just sixty years before, in 1762, Dr. William Watson, the
indefatigable advocate of Franklin’s discovery, had strongly
recommended to Lord Anson, first Lord of the Admiralty, that all
men-of-war should have lightning conductors; and his urgent zeal,
backed by influential friends, effected that his advice was listened to.
Being requested to send in the best design for a ship’s conductor, Dr.
Watson did so with alacrity, but, unfortunately, with little wisdom.
Knowing little or nothing of ships and their management at sea, the
learned member of the Royal Society advised that the lightning
conductors for the navy should be constructed of strips of copper
rod, one-fourth of an inch in diameter, hooked together every few
feet by links, and the whole attached, for more security, to a
hempen line, to be hung on to a metal spike on the top of the mast,
and from thence to fall down into the sea. In theory, it was not a
bad design, but it utterly failed in practice. Evidently, Dr. Watson had
never been on board of a large ship in a gale, for had he been, he
might have known that it would be next to impossible to keep his
chain in its place, exposed as it was to the operation of violent
mechanical forces, not to speak of possible bad treatment from
indignant sailors, with whose movement in the rigging it interfered.
It was a natural consequence of Dr. Watson’s ignorance, that his
conductors entirely failed. In most cases the commanders of men-of-
war, supplied with the copper-hempen chains, quietly stowed them
away in some corner of the ship, with orders to take them out when
needed, and it often happened that this was done only after the ship
had been struck by lightning. Year after year there came reports of
such casualties; and at last they got so numerous as really to attract
the attention of the naval authorities. Still, nothing was done until
William Snow Harris took up the matter. Sitting in his little cottage at
Plymouth, overlooking the sea, the happy thought struck the young
medical man, waiting for patients who did not come, that here might
be found a profitable as well as useful opening for his activity. He
possessed, happily, a few naval friends, ready with counsel and
assistance, and so he went to action, fighting for lightning
conductors.
The battle, resulting as it did in ultimate victory, was a long one,
nevertheless. For many years, all his efforts to induce the British
Government to adopt a system of efficient lightning conductors for
the Royal Navy remained entirely fruitless; and it was only after he
had gained the sympathy of the press, and, through it, of the public,
by publishing long lists of the disasters that had befallen the
cherished ‘wooden walls of England,’ that at last the closed doors of
the Admiralty were opened to him. The lists he furnished were
appalling indeed, and enough to impress any minds and open any
doors. It was shown by Mr. Snow Harris, from carefully compiled
records, based upon official documents, that in the course of forty
years—from 1793 to 1832—over 250 ships had suffered from
lightning. In 150 cases, the majority of which occurred between the
years 1799 and 1815, about 100 main-masts of line-of-battle ships
and frigates, with a still larger number of topmasts and smaller
spars, together with an immense quantity of stores, were destroyed
by lightning. One ship in eight was set on fire in some part of the
rigging or sails, and over 200 seamen were either killed or severely
disabled. But, formidable as was this account of damage done by
lightning, it by no means completed the list of casualties. Mr. Snow
Harris gave it as his opinion, on the authority of a great many naval
officers with whom he came into contact at Plymouth, that many
ships reported officially as ‘missing’ had been struck by lightning and
gone to the bottom, with nobody left behind to tell the tale. Thus,
from a reference to the log of the line-of-battle ship the
‘Lacedæmonian,’ under the command of Admiral Jackson, it
appeared that this man-of-war sailed alongside a frigate, the
‘Peacock,’ on the coast of Georgia, in the summer of 1814, and that
the latter suddenly disappeared in a storm of lightning, leaving no
trace behind. Again, the ‘Loup Cervier,’ another man-of-war, was last
seen off Charlestown, in America, on the evening of a severe
thunderstorm, and never heard of again. A famous ship, the
‘Resistance,’ of forty-four guns, was struck by lightning in the Straits
of Malacca, and the powder-magazine blowing up, it went to the
bottom, only three of the crew reaching the shore, picked up by a
passing Malay boat. But for these few survivors, Mr. Snow Harris
justly remarked, nothing would have been known of the fate of the
vessel, which would have been simply reported as ‘missing’ in the
Admiralty lists. It was scarcely to be wondered at that the recital of
all these tales of disasters, which might have been prevented by the
most ordinary foresight in applying known means of protection
against lightning, considerably excited the public mind, so that at
last the Government was compelled to act in the direction into which
it was impelled by the energetic Plymouth doctor. It was thus that at
last, in 1839, the naval commission already referred to was
appointed to give counsel as to ‘applying lightning conductors to Her
Majesty’s ships.’
Perhaps even this step in advance might not have favoured
much the cause pleaded by Mr. Snow Harris, had he not had the
good fortune of finding a powerful patron in Sir George Cockburn,
one of the Lords of the Admiralty. Sir George, born in London, of
Scottish parents, in 1772, had all his life long taken a great interest
in scientific pursuits; and the application of conductors especially
had interested him much, as he had himself been a witness to
frequent damage done to ships under his command by lightning.
The ‘Minerva,’ of which he was captain at the blockade of Leghorn,
in 1796, had been so struck, and likewise two ships of the flotilla,
reducing the French island of Martinique, in 1809, under his
direction. Having taken a prominent part in the American War of
1813–14, especially the capture of Washington, Sir George Cockburn
retired from active service, and in 1818 was made one of the Lords
Commissioners of the Admiralty, immediately after being returned a
Member of Parliament for Portsmouth. He henceforth devoted
himself more than ever to scientific studies; and, having been
elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, got into acquaintance with
many of its members, among them with Mr. Snow Harris, whom he
came to like on account of his fervid enthusiasm in the cause he was
advocating. The acquaintance proved of the highest advantage to
the young Plymouth electrician. Before even the naval commission,
nominated to give counsel upon the subject of lightning conductors,
had given in its report, he was allowed to make trial, on board of
several men-of-war, with a system designed by himself, and for
which he had taken out a patent. It was not long afterwards that it
was officially adopted for all the vessels of the Royal Navy, with, it is
needless to say, the greatest pecuniary advantages to the designer.
The system of Mr. Snow Harris for protecting ships against
lightning was similar to that suggested by Mr. Henly in 1774. Instead
of hanging dangling chains from the top of the rigging into the
water, he nailed on to the masts and down to the keel, slightly inlaid
in the wood, a double set of copper plates, overlying each other in
such a manner that the ends of one set were touched by the middle
of the other. The plates were four feet in length, two to five inches
wide, and one-eighth of an inch thick; they had holes drilled in them
at distances of six inches apart, and were secured to the masts and
further down by short copper nails. In order to prevent any break in
the conductor at the junction of the successive masts, a copper plate
was led over the cap, and the continuity preserved at all times by
means of a copper hinge or tumbler which fell against the conductor.
It was an altogether unobjectionable plan for securing protection
against lightning, except that it was liable to fail under imperfect
execution. Bad workmanship necessarily was fatal to it. The
numerous copper plates had to be very neatly and carefully fastened
together to ensure metallic continuity, in the absence of which the
electric force might leave the path traced for it, diverging into
neighbouring metallic masses, numerous on board ships, such as
chains and anchors. It was a most costly system from beginning to
end; but as it was, and, for the short time it remained in use, it
accomplished all that was desired. Not one of the ships fitted with
the conductors designed by Mr. Snow Harris was damaged by
lightning, although many were struck, the electric spark in several
cases being so powerful as to melt the too fine metal points on the
top of the masts. However, the new lightning conductors had not to
stand the ordeal of practice for any length of time. One by one the
great wooden ships of war, once the pride and glory of England,
went into peaceful retirement, to be replaced by iron machines,
propelled by steam, metalled from the top of the masts to the
water’s edge. It had been one of the recommendations of Mr. Snow
Harris to the Admiralty that his copper plates, though expensive at
first, would always be worth their money as old metal; and the irony
of fate would have it that the conversion of copper into silver was
not to be long in waiting. Before the death of the inventor, which
occurred in January 1867, his lightning conductors were fast
disappearing from the ships on which they were placed. From the
windows of his villa at Plymouth, Sir William Snow Harris could see a
fleet of ironclads, dispensing with conductors, floating on the sea.
Notwithstanding the short use of his own special naval work
which gave him fame, Sir William Snow Harris effected much in the
interest of lightning protection in general. He was one of the few
men in England who insisted that it was the duty of the Government,
as well as of private individuals, to place lightning conductors upon
all objects liable to be struck, arguing that it was little less than
criminal to neglect such a simple protection against overwhelming
danger. It was with some degree of vehemence, though not more
perhaps than was requisite, that he stood out against those who
objected to conductors because they ‘attracted’ lightning. Such
assertion will, at the present day, be regarded as foolish by all
persons possessed of the least scientific knowledge; but this was not
by any means the case forty or fifty years ago, when even well-
educated men denounced conductors. A civil engineer in the service
of the British Government, Mr. F. McTaggart, sent to Canada in 1826,
recommended openly the pulling-down of all lightning conductors in
that colony, and this too in the name of ‘science,’ of which he held
himself to be an enlightened disciple. ‘Science,’ wrote Mr. McTaggart,
2
in a book he published, ‘has every cause to dread the thunder-rods
of Franklin; they attract destruction, and houses are safer without
than with them. Were they able to carry off the fluid they have the
means of attracting, then there could be no danger; but this they
are by no means able to do.’ Had such reasonings as these been
merely the senseless talk of a few individuals, the harm done might
not have been great. But it was quite otherwise. Men of power and
position, if not of high education, were imbued profoundly with the
same ideas as Mr. McTaggart, as evidenced in at least one striking
instance, which would be scarcely credible were it not on official
record. In the year 1838, the Governor-General and Council of the
East India Company actually ordered that all the lightning rods
should be removed from their public buildings, including the arsenals
and powder magazines, throughout India. The rulers of the great
country had come to their decision, as they stated, by the advice of
their ‘scientific officers,’ who all apparently shared Mr. McTaggart’s
belief of the perils of ‘the thunder rods of Franklin.’ It was partly on
the representation of the energetic vindicator of lightning conductors
in Plymouth, that the order for their destruction in India was soon
countermanded by the authorities in Leadenhall Street, but not
before several buildings had been destroyed, among them a large
magazine at Dumdum, and a corning-house at Magazine. As often
before, so now, lightning itself proved the most powerful advocate of
conductors, and in India they were more quickly set up than they
had been thrown down.

2
Three Years in Canada. 8vo. London, 1829.

While designing lightning conductors for the ships of the Royal

Navy, Mr. William Snow Harris was called upon likewise by the
Secretary of State for War to give advice as to the best protection
that might be given to powder magazines and other stores of war
material. He did as requested, writing a very lucid paper on the
subject, which met with the honour, unique in its way, of being put
forward as an official document. To this day there is regularly issued
with the ‘Army Circulars’ from the War Office a series of ‘Instructions
as to the Applications of Lightning Conductors for the Protection of
Powder Magazines, &c.,’ reproducing textually the recommendations
of Mr. Snow Harris. These ‘Instructions,’ containing the essence of
what he wrote about conductors, and, in fact, the result of all his
investigations on the subject, treat the whole ab ovo, and as such
deserve quotation. ‘Thunder and lightning,’ Mr. Snow Harris wrote to
the War Office, ‘result from the operation of a peculiar natural
agency through an interval of the atmosphere contained between
the surface of a certain area of clouds, and a corresponding area of
the earth’s surface directly opposed to the clouds. It is always to be
remembered that the earth’s surface and the clouds are the
terminating planes of the action, and that buildings are only assailed
by lightning because they are points, as it were in, or form part of,
the earth’s surface, in which the whole action below finally vanishes.
Hence, buildings, under any circumstances, will be always open to
strokes of lightning, and no human power can prevent it, whether
having conductors or not, or whether having metals about them or
not, as experience shows.’
Mr. Snow Harris then went on philosophising. ‘Whenever,’ he
said, ‘the peculiar agency—whatever it be—active in this operation of
nature, and characterised by the general term electricity or electric
fluid, is confined to substances which are found to resist its
progress, such, for example, as air, glass, resinous bodies, dry wood,
stones, &c., then an explosive form of action is the result, attended
by such an evolution of light and heat, and by such an enormous
expansive force, that the most compact and massive bodies are rent
in pieces, and inflammable matter ignited. Nothing appears to stand
against it: granite rocks are split open, oak and other trees of
enormous size rent in shivers, and masonry of every kind frequently
laid in ruins. The lower masts of ships of the line, 3 feet in diameter
and 110 feet long, bound with hoops of iron half an inch thick and
five inches wide, the whole weighing about 18 tons, have been in
many instances torn asunder, and the hoops of iron burst open and
scattered on the decks. It is, in fact, this terrible expansive power
which we have to dread in cases of buildings struck by lightning,
rather than the actual heat attendant on the discharge itself.’
He continued: ‘When, however, the electrical agency is confined
to bodies, such as the metals, and which are found to oppose but
small resistance to its progress, then this violent expansive or
disruptive action is either greatly reduced or avoided altogether; the
explosive form of action we term lightning vanishes, and becomes,
as it were, transformed into a sort of continuous current action of a
comparatively quiescent kind, which, if the metallic substance it
traverses be of certain known dimensions, will not be productive of
any damage to the metal; if, however, it be of small capacity—as in
the case of a small wire—it may become heated and fused; in this
case the electrical agency, as before, is so resisted in its course as to
admit of its taking on a greater or less degree of explosive and
heating effect, as in the former case. It is to be here observed, that
all kinds of matter oppose some resistance to the progress of what is
termed the electrical discharge, but the resistance through capacious
metallic bodies is comparatively so small as to admit of being
neglected under ordinary circumstances; hence it is, that such
bodies have been termed conductors of electricity, whilst bodies
such as air, glass, &c., which are found to oppose very considerable
resistance to electrical action, are placed at the opposite extremity of
the scale, and termed non-conductors or insulators. The resistance
of a metallic copper wire to an ordinary electrical discharge from a
battery was found so small, that the shock traversed the wire at the
rate of 576,000 miles in a second. The resistance, however, through
a metallic line of conduction, small as it be, increases with the
length, and diminishes with the area of the section of the conductor,
or as the quantity of metal increases.’
After these theoretical explanations, Mr. Snow Harris went into
the practical part of the business of protecting buildings, and, more
especially, powder magazines and others containing explosive
materials, against the effects of lightning. ‘It follows,’ he
remarked,’from these established facts, that if a building were
metallic in all its parts, an iron magazine for example, then no
damage could possibly arise to it from any stroke of lightning which
has come within the experience of mankind. A man in armour is safe
from damage by lightning. In fact, from the instant the electrical
discharge, in breaking with disruptive and explosive violence through
the resisting air, seizes upon the mass in any point of it, from that
instant the explosive action vanishes, and the forces in operation are
neutralised upon the terminating planes of action—viz., the surface
of the earth and opposed clouds. All this plainly teaches us that, in
order to guard a building effectually against damage by lightning, we
must endeavour to bring the general structure, as nearly as may be,
into that passive or non-resisting state it would assume, supposing
the whole were a mass of metal. To this end, one or more
conducting channels of copper, depending upon the magnitude and
extent of the building, should be systematically applied to the walls.
These conducting channels should consist either of double copper
plates, united in series one over the other, as in the method of fixing
such conductors to the masts of her Majesty’s ships, the plates being
not less than 3½ inches wide, and of 1/16th and ⅛th of an inch in
thickness; or the conductors may with advantage be constructed of
stout copper pipe, not less than 1/16th of an inch thick, and 1½ to 2
inches in diameter; in either case the conductors should be securely
fixed to the walls of the building, either by braces, or copper nails, or
clamps. They should terminate in solid metal rods above, projecting
freely into the air, at a moderate and convenient height above the
point to which they are fixed, and below they should terminate in
one or two branches leading outward about a foot under the surface
of the earth; if possible, they should be connected with a spring of
water or other moist ground. It would be proper, in certain dry
situations, to lead out, in several directions under the ground, old
iron or other metallic chains, so as to expose a large extent of
metallic contact in the surface of the earth.’
A few pregnant sentences, which by themselves deserved the
honour of permanently figuring in the ‘Instructions’ sent out by the
War Office, completed the advice given by Mr. William Snow Harris in
respect to the setting up of lightning conductors. ‘A building,’ he truly
remarked, ‘may be struck and damaged by lightning without having
a particle of metal in its construction. If there be metals in it,
however, and they happen to be in such situations as will enable
them to facilitate the progress of the electrical discharge, so far as
they go, then the discharge will fall on them in preference to bodies
offering more resistance, but not otherwise. If metallic substances
be not present, or, if present, they happen to occupy places in which
they cannot be of any use in helping on the discharge in the course
it wants to go, then the electricity seizes upon other bodies, which
lie in that course, or which can help it, however small their power of
doing so, and in this attempt such bodies are commonly, but not
always, shattered in pieces.’ He summed up as follows:—‘The great
law of the discharge is, progress between the terminating planes of
action—viz., the clouds and earth—and in such line or lines as, upon
the whole, offer the least mechanical impediment or resistance to
this operation, just as water, falling over the side of a hill in a rain
storm, picks out, or selects as it were by the force of gravity, all the
little furrows or channels which lie convenient to its course, and
avoids those which do not. If in the case of lightning you provide,
through the instrumentality of efficient conductors, a free and
uninterrupted course for the electrical discharge, then it will follow
that course without damage to the general structure; if you do not,
then this irresistible agency will find a course for itself through the
edifice in some line or lines of least resistance to it, and will shake all
imperfect conducting matter in pieces in doing so. Moreover, it is to
be especially remarked in this case, that the damage ensues, not
where the metals are, but where they ceased to be continued; the
more metal in a building, therefore, the better, more especially when
connected by an uninterrupted circuit with any medium of
communication with the earth.’
‘Such is, in fact,’ he concluded, ‘the great condition to be
satisfied in the application of lightning conductors, which is virtually
nothing more than the perfecting a line or lines of small resistance in
given directions, less than the resistance in any other lines in the
building, which can be assigned in any other direction, and in which,
by a law of nature, the electrical agency will move in preference to
any others. The popular objections to lightning conductors on the
ground that they invite lightning to the building, that we do not
know the quantity of electricity in the clouds, and that hence they
may cause destruction, are now quite untenable, and have only
arisen out of a want of knowledge of the nature of electrical action.
What should we think of a person objecting to the use of gutters
and rain-pipes for a house, on the ground of their attracting or
inviting a flow of water upon the building; and since we do not know
the amount of rain in the clouds, it is possible that the building may
be thereby inundated,—yet such is virtually the argument against
lightning conductors.’
Mr. Snow Harris, as already mentioned, received the honour of
knighthood in 1847; and after this date lived in comparative
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