The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1898-09-28
ipgs from all ordinary chances Of cleo:
trical attack.

ings from all ordinary chances Of elec-
trical attack.
! City people may congratulate them
selves that they are very much less
liable to lightning stroke than country
folks. In fact, it is reckoned that the
average person in q rural district is
five times as likely to be struck by
lightning as town resident. This is
because the tin roofs, drain pipes,
etc., Of the city houses serve as con-
ductors of electricity. 1t is practi-
cally unnecessary to provide light
ming rods for dwelling in city
block. At the same time efforts are
continually being made to increase
the protection Of buildings against
lightning, and this has been the sub
ject of many curious Inventors. For
instance, one Of these would provide
each town or village with one or more
skeleton iron towers of enormous
height which should be equipped with
rods extending far up toward the sky
Thus any threatening cloud would be
apt to direct it's electric discharges
against these towers in preference to
the houses below. Another idea is to
raise, whenever a thunder storm ar
rives, a number Of balloons, with pro-
truding metal points, which are ex-
peoted to carry off the current through
cables connecting them with the
ground.
One of the best evidences Of the
value of lightning rods up to date has
been afforded by the Washington mon
ument. 1t is capped by small four
sided pyramid Of aluminium, which
metal, so cheap to-day, was very
costly at the time of the building Of
the greatest obelisk that the world has
ever known. This aluminium tip is
connected with the ground by four
copper rods which 60 down deep into
the earth. On April S, 1884, five i'm
mense bolts of electricity were seen to
fash between the monument and a
thunder cloud overhanging in the
course of twenty minutes. In other
words. the monument was struck
fiercely five times, but it suffered no
damage whatever. On June Is of the
same year a more tremendous assault
was made upon the monument from
the heavens, and the result was a
fracture of one of the topmost stones.
The crack still remains to show what
nature can do in the way Of an cleo
trical shock, but the slightness Of the
damage is evidence of mans s power to
protect himself from such attacks.
The obelisk is ideally located for
attracting electrical assaults from the
skies, and yet while many times hit,
it has suffered only once, and that
time to trifing extent
In old times vessels used often to
.e struck by lightning, and the loss
by that cause was very great. From
1880 to 1910 no fewer than 280 ships
Of the British navy were struck, 100
men being killed and $50 injured.
Nowadays war ships, as well as big
merchant vessels, have lightning rods
running down their masts and into
the sea, so that the electricity is car
ried off. In these days nobody hears
Of the destruction Of vessel by light
ming. Churches, if they continue to
be built as now, will always be favorite
targets for lightning. They are the
buildings most commonly struck. In
Roman Catholic countries the intro
duction Of lightning rods was bitterly
opposed; they were called "heretio
rods. Nevertheless, they defend
most churches now. There is record
of certain church in Carinthia, which
was hit by lightning four or i've times
year on an average, the services
being stopped in summer on this ac-
count. A rod was put on the steeplc,
and there was no more trouble.
RENA BAcHE.