Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1881-03-29
makes the connection at the bottom or

| All rods connected with the house
and with the earth tend, by means of
their points, 10 increase the attraction
and ren dcr the house more liable to be
struck than it would have been had
there been no rod, because all good
conductors attract with greater force
and for q greater distance than poor
bohes!I S@4 E % En
Electricity, like all other forces In
nature, has an,opposing force. There
can no more be d positive without a
negative, than there can be 9 magnet
with but one. pole. There must be
day and night, joy and sorrow, love
and hatred, male and female, positive
and negative. Tit were not for those
opposing forces in nature day and night
would not succeed each other, motion
would resolve itself into. inactivity
and rest in the quiet embrace of
| eternal death. ----------
Solomon's Temple, that had stood
for one Thousand and eighty two years
in a land of thunderstorms, was not
once struck by lightning during all
that time; it was protected precisely ON
the same principal that Mr.. J. c..
Chambers now proposes to protect our
dwellings. Although it was not in
tended as protection from lightning,
but against the defilement OF the roof
by birds alighting upon it. The roof
was covered with cedar, and that, with
heavy gliding, which kept the wood
perfectly dry and formed good insus
lator; and in this dry wood all over
the building were erected points of
steel which served double purpose,
although it was not known or thought
of at the time. H E..4 us
A farm laborer, running for shelter,
was suddenly thrown to the ground,
the fork which he carried Oh his
shoulder being wrenched from his
grasp and carried through the air to a
distance Of fifty or sixty yards. The
proDgs were bent and twisted with
well-nigh mathematical accuracy into
the shape OF cork-screws, the steel be
| ing burnt and formed ON its exterior
, surface into small lamine which emit
ted s slightly sulphurous odor. The
labOrer escaped without injury.
These examples go to prove the cor
rectness Of the Chambers theory. In
the case of the farm iaborer the dry
wood served as an insulator; although
not near 30 good as glass, it was the
means Of saving the mans life, and
had the prongs Of the fork been in con-
tact with the man he undoubtedly
/ would have been killed.
The true purpose of the Chambers
lightning rod and insulator or cresting
work, is to prevent stroke of Light
ming by keeping the potentials equal,
or so nearly go as to prevent disrup-
tive discharge from the clouds, or in
case it failed to equali2e the electric
tensions, and there would be dis>
ruptive discharge toward the house, it
would be very feeble, and received on
one of the points and thrown back
into the air in diffused state from
the other points.
The question may be asked, What il
it should strike all the points at once,
what then? This cannot be, for the
stroke as it comes from the cloud is
positive, and two positives would not
enter different points of the rod at the
same time. for positive repels positive.
1t is this law OF attraction and repul-
sion that causes our earth to revolve
upon its axis, the sun being the
great reservoir of positive force or
positive electricity and the earth the
great negative, or opposite force.
AS the SUMS rays strike upon the
western horizon OF the earth's sur.
face, and finds by it's absence for
twelve hours from the SUMS ipfiu-
ence 1t has become negative, the two
forces at once attracting each other,
and as the earth revolves Oh its axis
ami the same surface is exposed for
twelve hours to the influence Of the
great positive. it becomes sureharged,
and by repulsion is repealed in the OPP
p6site direction; hence, by attraction
on the west and repulsion in the
east, the earth performs its daily revo-
luton.
i 1t is this electrical force passing, as
it does, at right angles across the great
electric magnetic currents, forming a
beautiful and all-potent web, COM
posed of warp and wool, of the most
powerful essences that exist In the
universal realm Of nature, forming the
bands and bars that hold all things in
the active portions of our globe in q
/ permanent condition, and prevents'the
general tendency to dissolution.
| Some may think it strange we have
i gone on for more than century and
not discovered our mistake ere this |;
so it is, and 80 it has been, that the
people believed for nearly two thou
sand years that the sun, moon and
stars all revolved around this earth
as their center, and when Calico adj
vocated the Copernician theory that
not or ly this earth, with its moon, but
other worlds, with their satellites, re-
volved around the sun as the center,