William Watson

“ When such buildings are exposed to very large clouds replete with lightning, there is no reason to imagine that they will not convey some of their contents to other metallic parts of the building at the same time as to the metal at the top: for though the conductor may be large enough to convey to the ground, from the top, all the lightning that enters that part; yet one such small conductor cannot be supposed to exhaust those immense bodies so quickly, as to disable them from striking at the same time other buildings, or other parts of the same building. ”

“ On houses, where there are gutters and spouts of lead to carry off the rain, the wire need only be conducted to the lead of the gutters; and attention be had that the gutters and the spouts coming from them are in their whole length in contact, or very nearly so, one with the other. If the leaden spouts do not reach to the bottom of the building, a slip of lead, such as is employed for the gutters, and about an inch wide, should be fastened to the bottom of one or two of the spouts, and conducted to the water. ”

“ I am of opinion, that the lightning first took the weather-cock and was conducted, without injuring the metal or any thing else, as low as where the large iron bar or spindle, which is inserted into the top of the steeple, and comes down several feet of its length, terminates. There the metallic communication cealing, part of the lightning exploded, cracked and shattered the obelisk, which terminates the spire of the steeple, in its whole diameter, and threw off at this place several large peices of Portland stone, of which this steeple is built. ”

“ It is frequently taken notice of, in attending to the apparatus for observing the electricity of the clouds, that tho' the sky is much darkened, and there have been several claps of thunder at no great distance, yet the apparatus will be scarce affected by it; but as soon as the rain begins, and falls upon so much of the apparatus, as is placed in the open air, the bells of the apparatus in the house ring, and the electrical snaps succeed each other in a very extraordinary manner. ”

“ I flatter myself, that what has here lately happened will tend to occasion the applying of an apparatus of this sort to all buildings, at least, of value and extent. No steeple should certainly be without it; and in most, if the iron work of the weather-cock can be easily got at, it may be adapted with very little trouble or expence. It is only necessary to make a metallic communication between this iron work and the lead, which carries off the water. This frequently reaches to the ground or very near it. ”

“ In every part that is damaged, the lightning has acted as an elastic fluid, endeavouring to expand itself where it was accumulated in the metal: and the effects are exactly similar to those which would have been produced by gun-powder pent up in the same places, and exploded. ”

“ Bride's Steeple, as well as the mischief to South-Weald church on the same day, evinces, to me at least, that the apparatus, usually applied to weather cocks, should never be trusted in any building, without a metallic communication from them to some water, or at least very moist ground. St. Bride's Steeple, one of the most beautiful in London, was, on Monday, June 18, about ten minutes before three in the afternoon, very greatly injured, in one of the most severe thunder storms, which ever happened here. ”

“ The construction of the spire is somewhat similar to that of an apparatus purposely contrived to draw the lightning from the clouds, as it runs up towards a point, and ends in a metal vane and cross, the figure of which, as well as the materials that they consist of, seem calculated to admit the lightning with the least resistance. ”

“ Heberden, a very deservedly eminent physician here, if chains are employed as metallic communications, instead of wires or rods, whenever the lightning comes near enough to affect the apparatus in a considerable degree, it will without mischief be visible in the dark, by its sparkling and snapping in its passage, at the links of the chain. ”

“ In the centre of this circle should be a well, very near which should be erected a pole or mast, high enough to reach some feet above the buildings of the powder magazine, or the buildings in it's neighbourhood. From this mast there should rise a brass rod, five or six feet in length, an inch in thickness, and ending in a point; and from this rod a wire of copper of a size not less than that of a large goose quill, should be conveyed down the mast, and terminate in the water of the well. If there is no well, the wire should be laid into the nearest water ”

“ The damage done to the steeple is, except near the top, confined almost to the East and North East side, and most generally where the ends of the iron bars have been inserted into the stone or placed under it; and in some places, by its violence in the stone, its passage may be traced from one iron bar to another. And it is very remarkable, that, to lessen the quantity of stone in this beautiful steeple, in several parts, cramps of iron have been employed ”

“ These effects from artificial lightning, are exactly similar to those of the natural; as we have several times known iron wires, nails, and other metallic substances to have been melted, and parts of them, while hot, bedding themselves in wood, by a thunder storm. ”

“ In countries and places so circumstanced, no house or other building should be without one at least; large edifices ought to have several. The number should be in proportion to the size of the building.
III. In powder magazines, I should recommend the apparatus to be detached from the building itself; and to be only placed as near it as might be. Powder magazines should never be constructed so, as to cover a large quantity of ground. If securiry from lightning was considered in their construction as a considerable object, I should recommend a circular building ”

“ Artificial lightning from a case of 35 bottles, I find will entirely destroy brass wire of one part in 330 of an inch. At the time of the stroke, a great number of sparks, like those from a flint and steel, fly upwards, and laterally from the place where the wire was laid, and lose their light in the daytime at the distance of about two or three inches. ”

“ So that, I think, a conductor of metal less than six or eight inches in breadth, and a quarter of an inch in thickness (or an equal quantity of metal in any other form that maybe found more convenient) cannot with safety be depended on, where buildings are exposed to the reception of so great a quantity of lightning. ”

“ The lightning accumulated in the metal, having it’s passage towards the earth strongly resisted at this place, has in expanding itself formed the hole A, by bursting off from the lower part of the spindle the stones contiguous to it on that side. ”

“ Hence the rupture still continuing, and probably increasing, more and more air becomes extravasate, until, as in the present case, the quantity becomes so great, as not only to impede the course of the blood through the lungs, but the internal pressure of the extravasate air prevents the ingress of a quantity of fresh air, sufficient to cool and attenuate the blood. In fact, a small part only of the lungs is employed; as the extravasate air, though still in an elastic state, answers by no means the purposes of fresh air in respiration ”

“ When once the extremities of the bronchia and the vesicular substance have given way, the mischiefs are easily foreseen. The air getting loose into the substance of the lungs cannot be parted with in exspiration; it consequently is retained there, and the space it occupies prevents as much of the external air being received into the lungs as its own quantity. As, from their incessant motion, injuries to the lungs are not easily removed, when once a rupture is made, every fit of couging or other violent exertion extravasates more air. ”

“ As metal has been made red hot, and melted by artificial lightning, how much greater must be presumed to be the effects of the natural; and how much larger ought to be the metallic part of the apparatus, to avert its mifchief? This requires particular attention.
VII. I was of opinion, that iron bars to support weather cocks, if they were placed upon the tops of buildings made of brick or stone, and in contact with either of these materials, were not dangerous to ordinary buildings on the account you mention, except in very particular and extraordinary cases ”

“ He says, that he has considered with satisfaction the real advantages, which may arise from thence to fortified towns, where the quantity of gun-powder may, from any accident, endanger the whole fabric of a city. ”

“ Bride's and South Weald churches, if considered as great electrical experiments, furnish very important, and, I flatter myself, useful conclusions. They are too hazardous and expensive however, to wish to see often repeated. ”

“ Bride's church; as it gives so positive and explicit an answer to part of your seventh question; such a one as could not, without the late thunderstorm, have been furnished, at least from hence: To wit, that, without a proper apparatus, weather-cocks placed at the tops of any buildings are dangerous to them in thunder storms; but more especially to powder magazines. ”

“ And it is wonderful, when the texture of the lungs is considered, that accidents of this kind do not much oftener happen, not only in vehement reachings to vomit, but in violent coughs, pains of childbirth, lifting great weights, and other preternatural exertions of strength. ”

“ Several days before his death, he took large doses of Vinegar of squills four or five times a day. This, though it did not in the least offend his stomach, did not promote his expectoration, which still continued viscid. ”

“ Amongst many other stones thrown to a considerable distance by these explosions, one weighing above seventy pounds was removed fifty yards Eastward from the steeple, where it fell through the roof of a house. ”

“ Its rapid progress being here in some measure prevented, at the end of one of the iron bars, it threw off the upper part of one of the Composite pillars just above its capital and a large portion of the cornice projecting over it, and that with such a force, that part of a stone which was placed here and formed a portion of the cornice, and weighed seventy two pounds, was projected, not only the whole length of the body of the church, but beyond it, across St. ”