Year: 1864

l OF MCARONEs
! LIGHTNING RoDs. THEIR USES AND
THEIR DEFEoTs.-This great invention of
DIR Benjamin franklin was not designed to
draw lightning from great distance. The
bolt when discharged takes its direction,
which is changed somewhat by conductors.
A house in its path is saved if it has upon
it good metallic conductor of electricity,
because the fluid so called, takes the route
which will allow it to reach the earth in
the shortest possible time, and thus restore
the equilibrium. That portion of a roof
which is regarded as absolutely protected,
is circle whose radius is equal to the height
to which the rod extends above the roof;
hence it is common practice to have sew
ersl terminations or branches OK the main
rod projecting from the highest part of the
roof, and frem the corners of the building


A defective lightning rod is dangerous
because it draws toward the house a force
which it cannot conduct away from it. A
death occurred on the 18th of last month at
Rensselaer,, Ind, by lightning, in house
| two and half stories high, situated in, q
/ grove of tall timber. The lightning rod
| designed to protect the building was made
of two kinds of metal-the first three upper
sections were of octagonal copper, the re-
maiDder was an iron rod. Copper is much
better conductor of electricity than iron.-
! The copper rod received mora than the
iron rod could instantly carry away. The
| consequence was that portion sought its
path to the ground through the house. A
human body was the bridge by which it
crossed bed, ond life was swept off in its
passage. Most of the accidents from light
ming, in cases of houses provided with rods.
are the result of imperfect insulation. The
rods are not properly fastened with non
conductors, and do not always enter the
ground far enough to reach the moisture.
Metallic roofs with cutters and leaders run
ming to the ground, ;when wet are perfect
conductors.


Hardware stores, although filled with
metal, are seldom, if ever, injured by light
ming. The current does not always descend
from the sky to the earth. The earth is
generally negative and the clouds positive;
but if the earth was positive and the clouds
negative, the direction of the electric force
would be reversed.


The Rip Van Wrinkles of our Race
! One of the most succnct and compreher.
sive statements of the kind we have ever
seen, appears in speech made by the Rev
Samuel Goley, at a Weslean missionary an
niversary. 1t is passage worth preserv-
ing:


"I suppose that DO country has ever had
such a united intellectual development as
China. The Chinese is the largest, yet, be-
yond its own realm, the least influential of
monarchies. From China, 70 mission ev-
er started, no conqueror ever marched
Before all people in rudimental invention
they are behind all people in development.
They had both gold and silver coins before
theIfirst Daric was minted, yetthey traffic by
the scales to this day. They first had gun
powder, but have got little further with its
use than to blaze it away in crackers. They
were long beforehand with the magnet, but
no Junk ever crossed the ocean except il
tow of British ship. They have printed
from time immemoral, but their literature e
awakes no progressive intellect. They have
made glass for two thousand years, and or
dinarily do not make it clear enough to see
through yet. Their astronomy is still as
trology, nor has their mistry swoke fr on
dreams of alchemy. They have politeness
but it's odd forms and slavery of etiquette
only make them more unsociable. They
have wonderful language, but its elaborat te
cleverness. is curse and fetter to thei


minds, making it the labor of life to read
They are not without notions OF dignity, bu
the men find it in nails long enough fol-
claws; and the women in feet crush into the
shapelessness of hoofs. In the South Allan
tic there is seattle great Sargazo. All
the currents pass byait. Dull, dead, heav-


ing waves, Just move the heaped up tangl
of wrecks. that rot in that ssagnant melan
choly ocean limbo. China is the Sargszo
sea in the ocean of humanity.


WHAT ARE WE CoMINe To.-A few day