Benjamin Franklin

“ That lightning, in its passage through a building, will leave wood to pass as far as it can in metal, and not enter the wood again till the conductor of metal ceases.
And the same I have observed in other instances, as to walls of brick or stone. The quantity of lightning, that passed through this steeple, must have been very great by its effects on the lofty spire above the bell, and on the square tower all below the end of the clock pendulum. Great as this quantity was, it was concluded by a small wire and a clock pendulum, without the least damage to the building fo far as they extended. ”

“ It does not appear to me, that Pere Beccaria doubts of the absolute impermeability of glass in the sense I meant it; for the instances he gives of holes made through glass by the eletric stroke are such, as we have all experienced, and only shew, that the electric fluid could not pass without making a hole. In the same manner we say, glass is impermeable to water, and yet a stream from a fire-engine will force through the strongest panes of a window. ”

“ Being in the town of Newbury in New England, in November last, I was shewn the effect of lightning on their church, which had been struck a few months before. The steeple was a square tower of wood, reaching seventy feet up from the ground to the place where the bell hung, over which rose a taper spire, of wood likewise, reaching seventy feet higher, to the vane or weather-cock. Near the bell was fixed an iron hammer to strike the hours ; and from the tail of the hammer a wire went down through a small gimlet-hole in the floor that the bell stood upon, and thro' a second floor in like manner ”