DESCRIPTION OF CHRIST CHURCH SPIRE, DONCASTER, AS STRUCK BY LIGHTNING, NOV. 3, 1836.

Sir, In several Numbers of your valuable Magazine, I have seen communications relating to electrical phenomena, which lead me to think the following account of the destruction of the spire of Christ Church, at Doncaster, by lightning, may not be unacceptable to you; nor altogether uninteresting in a scientific point of view, as it demonstrates more fully than any accident of the kind I have ever heard of, the efficacy and indispensableness of conducting-rods.

On Thursday, Nov. 3, a thunder-storm passed over the town of Doncaster, which in its commencement was not of such an awful character as to lead to the apprehension of any serious result. After a few peals of thunder, an interval of death-like stillness occurred-when it appeared as if Nature was concentrating her powers for some mighty effort. I was standing at the time in the doorway of a building situated in a south-east direction from the church, about threequarters of a mile distant, and was looking towards the town, when a tremendous flash of vivid white lightning, that seemed to 66 set all ether in a blaze," was followed, or rather accompanied, by a long, slightly zigzag streak of a dingy-reddish colour, which originated apparently in a dense black cloud at some distance northeast from the church, and took a horizontal direction until near the spire, when it gradually curved downwards, and finally struck its summit. A bright corruscation appeared for an instant on the apex of the spire; at the same time a dense cloud of smoke arose round the fabric, and I saw the displaced fragments falling to the ground. This beautiful little church was erected in 1827-8. Its site is somewhat elevated, and the height of the spire was about 150 feet. When the building was finished, a mass of glass of a somewhat conical shape was placed upon its summit, which, being a nonconductor, it was supposed might prevent accidents from lightning, to which its great height, and pointed form, obviously rendered it extremely liable.

The accompanying ink-drawing is from a beautiful oil-painting now executing by Mr. Hepworth, of this town, and is a faithful representation of the appearance of the spire on the morning succeeding

the accident; the dotted lines show the original elevation.

From the present state of the spire, the following conclusions may be drawn:The electric fluid has first struck the apex of the spire, about 12 feet of which it has shivered and thrown down; several lines of fracture appear in the remaining portion of the spire. But the main body of the fluid seems to have taken a spiral direction downwards from a to the lancetwindow b, where the stone-work is dreadfully shattered. From this point it has turned again along a lead-gutter at d, and down a lead pipe inside one of the traceried windows below, which discharges the water between the slate composing the window; at the termination of this pipe it has again entered the stonework between the windows e, (where the tower is here fractured for above a yard) until opposite the bell, where it is lost; but most probably from this point it flew to the bell, and from thence down a copper wire to the clock-work in the chamber below; of this there is one very confirmatory circumstance, viz. the beam through which the wire passes is very much rent. From the clock it has made an easy transit to the gas-pipe which conveyed gas for supplying the illuminated dials, and has followed the course of this pipe down to the earth. The plate-glass of the illuminated dials has been shivered to atoms; and a very few fragments remain in the iron framework, which is not at all injured. The gas-pipe along which the fluid has passed enters the clock-chamber at a circular window corresponding with the three dials, a few feet above the roof of the body of the church. A few inches below this window about eight inches of the pipe was melted, and the gas ignited; and the pipe was again melted in the interior at perhaps two yards from thisevidently proving that this was the path pursued by the electric fluid in its course downwards to the earth. It is remarkable, that while the gas-pipe, which is of copper, and about half an inch in diameter, has been melted, the copper wire connecting the bell-hammer with the clock-work, which is of the size denominated by the manufacturers No. 16, remained entire and uninjured.

This occurrence is extremely interesting, inasmuch as it proves beyond a doub the total inefficacy of cones of glass, or

HOUSE-BURNING SYSTEM.

Sir, Will Mr. Baddeley, who may truly be termed the "Amateur Fireman," tell me

1st. Whether a more effective instrument than the fire-engine now in use is desired by the Fire-Insurance Companies? If not, as the lawyers have it, why not?

2d. Why Mr. Braithwaite's steam fireengine (which all admit to be an effective instrument) has not been adopted?

3d. Whether a return could be had of the number of fires for a given time (twelve months) distinguishing between insured and uninsured; stating, also, whether the fires began in the one class of property or the other; and what the relative loss of property in each case, compared to the other, is?

1 bethink me a negative will be the answer to my first-fear of "Othello's occupation being gone," to my second-and an exposure that would lead to public reprobation, to my third query. Mr. Baddeley is an extremely intelligent man, and clever writer; let him show himself honest and fearless also, by "nothing extenuating" in his reply, for he appears to know more of this matter than we of the commonalty do.

Your obedient servant,
FIRE-FURY.

STRICTURES ON THE ELECTRICIANS.

Sir, I trouble you with some observations on electricity, and also on a species of mania which has of late years possessed the greater number of the students in the science; and in particular branches of it, so bewildered their understandings, that they seem to have quite

forgotten the advice of their great guides, Bacon and Newton, by following which so many great discoveries in this science have been made.

I suppose it is the greatness of these discoveries, added to the love of novelty, that has produced this unfortunate aberration of intellect, which I beg leave to name electrophobia. Its baneful effects have chiefly appeared in an almost total abandonment of the inquiry into the fundamental principles of this noblest of physical sciences, which it so much concerns the astronomer, the chemist, the geologist, and so many ers and ists besides, to be well instructed in; and without a more searching inquiry into which, I am inclined to think the subdivisions of the science, magnetism, galvanism, &c., will, in some of their more abstruse principles, remain long in their present obscurity.

Franklin framed a beautiful theory, considering the infancy of the science in his time; and in his principles (and assumptions, too) the English philosophers, who at first neglected him, have become quite fast set-so much so, that ever since they have scarcely dared to question them.

Though neither he nor they could untie the knot of negative recession, which he assumed to be repulsion, yet, with a truly Roman, undoubting, steadfastness they seem resolved, at all hazards, to persevere in that assumption Witness, amongst other instances, Dr. Ritchie's and Professor Stevelly's observations in answer to Professor Hare, at Bristol last August.*

Mr. Du Fay (according to the French philosophers), Mr Eeles (according to the Irish), and Mr. Symmer (according to the English)-forgetting the simplicity of nature and Newton's consequent rule, not to admit more causes than a necessary to explain natural phenomena― created another electric fluid to untie the Gordian knot of negative recession, as Franklin had before created a new power. I am compelled to believe, as far as

* I should feel extremely obliged to any one who would refer me to any account of the experiments then mentioned by Dr. Ritchie, where the goldleaf electroscope diverged in vacuo. The Doctor's assertion seems directly in the teeth of similar experiments by Sir Humphrey Davy with the corkball electroscope, and which I met with somewhere in the Philosophical Transactions. In these on the gradual abstraction of air the electrified balls gradually diverged, and the converse on its gradual re-admission.

my present information of facts goes, that there is no such thing as repulsion in nature. Attraction alone (pursuing Newton's rule) seems to me sufficient to explain every thing that it concerns in electricity, or other sciences, far more reasonably than with the assistance of that hypothetical and unsocial force repulsion. I formed this opinion three or four years ago, as soon as I had acquired any thing like a comprehensive view of the subject; and I was still more confirmed in it by the fact of two friends, to whom I named it, having also come to the same conclusion.

Pursuing the consideration of the subject, additional arguments suggested themselves till I acquired a belief in homogeneous attraction of electricity also.

Magnetism and electro-magnetism furnish the greatest obstacle to the rejection of repulsion altogether; but let us go back from those more complicated subsciences in which the discovery of Oersted, and others, has given our philosophers the above-mentioned phobia, and inquire whether we are right in sustaining Franklin's assumptions from the fewer facts then known, as well as his incontestible principles, if any such there be. Let us go back, I say, to the foundation of the science, to machine electricity, when our first inquiry will be whether electricity be in reality matter and a fluid. It is still much questioned, but I could perhaps demonstrate it from past experiments of others (which have not been closely enough examined), without resorting to nearly 200 experiments I have noted down for trial on the particular point, and one or two of which I have made.

Under this first head, as necessarily connected with the experiments I shall propose to prove it, I intend to introduce some new considerations on the best mode of forming conductors, so as to produce the maximum effects depending on the tranference of electricity.

Under the same head, also, will perhaps not inappropriately come the consideration of a method of measuring the velocity of clectricity, which, I do not

*

Since I first wrote the text, I have found in a little annual lent to me (called The Arcana of Science and Art), a short account of Professor Wheatstone's method by means of a revolving mirror. My method is intended to register the velocity, and the time also occupied in passing a particular point,

doubt, may be ascertained as accurately as the motion of any other fluid, as I think I perceive sources of fallacy in the principal attempts already made. At the same time will be considered a method of ascertaining the time taken by the fluid in passing a particular point in the circuit.

These latter topics will naturally lead to observations on the experiments of Dr. Watson and the Royal Society, tending to show a fallacy in their assumption, of the electricity in those experiments being in motion in a complete circuit from the inside to the outside of the phial, and to the suggestion of some experiments that must, I conceive, settle the question.

7

If electricity prove to be fluid matter,+ the next thing will be to show it has an attraction for other bodies, a thing I suppose not doubted by any one who thinks it is material. After which, I think it will not be inappropriate to discuss a question that I have never seen glanced at even by those who deny repulsion. Has electricity homogeneous attraction? I think it has I feel scarcely a shade of doubt of it. I think it might be satisfactorily established from recorded experiments, independently of 30 or 40 experiments that I have noted for trial on the point, and which I fancy must settle the question pro or con. If settled pro, away goes all the old rubbish about electrical repulsion; unless, indeed, its supporters. will say that the particles of electricity have the paradoxical property of both attracting and repelling each other. As well might they say the parts of a sponge repel each other when they make way for the water their attraction forcibly brings into its pores.

If the experiments on homogeneous attraction of electricity should prove its non-existence, the question of repulsion still remains open, and I have numerous experiments noted for trial to negative

I have long thought it might be the undulations of this fluid, extending to the sun and pervading all things on earth, that caused light; but have little considered it. At present nothing has occurred to me that militates against that supposition. I have been the last few months doing what I have contemplated a year or two past, constructing a balloon to carry up a cord with brass thread in it, to ascertain the relative quantities and intensities of electricity at differeut heights; but this plan I have not yet had time to complete. If electricity do extend and increase in intensity to the greatest attainable height, why may it not extend to the sun?

that also, as well as arguments from past experiments, some of which have most strangely been considered as proofs of repulsion. By the way, let the repulsionist answer this question-Why is it that electrified pith-balls will lie sociably enough together at the bottom of an electrified cup or a jar insulated, while attempted to be charged by the outside coating, and not fly up and hang suspended in air at a respectful distance from each other in the manner it is supposed the atoms of gases do? I have a great horror of this savage doctrine of repulsion. * Let us once get rid of it, and establish homogeneous attraction in its place, and I fancy the science of electricity in all its branches will be found to have been freed from an incubus that has very much retarded the progress of discovery, great and wonderful and beautiful as that progress has been notwithstanding.

The beautiful simplicity of nature is assented to by every tongue. Let every head assent to it likewise, and, taking Newton's advice, determine to reject every cause that can be dispensed with in explaining and experimenting upon natural phenomena.

When homogeneous attraction is es. tablished, perhaps some thoughts on the causes of conduction and non-conduction, as depending upon it, may be admissible. I suppose no one pretends now that the recession of water from greasy surfaces, and of mercury from iron ones, are instances of repulsion; but that every one acknowledges such recession, is caused by the homogeneous attraction of those fluids being greater than their attraction for those surfaces. When homogeneous attraction is admitted in elec

tricity, I trust it will not be deemed too great an assumption to consider the superiority of that power to the power of affinity as the cause of non-conduction.

These three qualities-materiality, attraction of affinity, and homogeneous attraction, being once established as belonging to electricity, perhaps the film will at once drop from the eyes of our philosophers, and enable them to see with a glance into many things now quite inexplicable. Perchance they may even be induced to talk of latent and free (I do not mean active) electricity, and of specific effects arising from the peculiar motions of each.

In all the instances I have met with of the denial of repulsion, that denial appears to have been treated either as presumptuous or ridiculous, and perhaps the first proposition of the bolder assumption (I will not at present claim a higher title for it,) of homogeneous attraction in electricity will meet with a still less ceremonious treatment; but 1 can afford to wait for its admission, and, as far as my own selfish feelings are concerned, should have no objection to find it denied till I have leisure and the pecuniary means (alas, at present, a very distant prospect,) to attempt the establishment of it by experiments of my own making. However, I am anxious not to lose any credit that might accrue from the first promulgation of this doctrine, and shall be obliged by your insertion of this letter, as well as two or three others that I am desirous of publishing on the points before-mentioned. CORPUSCULUM.

Leamington, Nov. 29, 1836.

George Stephenson, Esq., C.E., examined. The first scheme to prevent danger from sparks from the engines on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, was to put the wire under the chimney immediately above the tubes that come from the fire. It certainly lessened the number of the sparks; but that part of the wire soon got choked up, and the engine could not go on. Then we tried it at the top; there it was something like this, but

not so close. They could not get power enough with even that; it varied as the apertures of various sizes, till we were obliged to enlarge them. They were tried down to one-eighth of an inch; I think it was about that, but it was a wove wire; it was a number of concentrated rings. There is another scheme which I tried, of putting a large umbrella without any wire so far above the chimney, that all the sparks thrown out must

be thrown back again by the umbrella; but even that retarded the engine so much that I was obliged to give it up. It stood a foot above the chimney, then it came down the sides. The wind blowing will not measure with the carriage; it goes so much faster than that. A sloping inside shield at the lower part of the chimney, and again a sloping shield put at the top of the chimney, the second partly to cover the aperture left for the first, was tried on the Liverpool at my suggestion. My opinion is, it will not prevent the sparks coming, for if there is an outlet for the steam there is an outlet for the sparks. It is not confined to apertures; there it has a larger opening; the sparks will follow the current. I had a number of shields put down like a Venetian blind in rows, or like a Venetian blind hanging down like the shield spoken of; eight or nine of them I added at the bottom, and though there was plenty of space beside the shield, yet it retarded the power of the engine so much as to cause us to take it off.

J. Walker, Esq., C.E., examined.

As regards the importance of guarding against fire, I would beg to state that I have had a good deal to do with the subject of water-works for towns, particularly the very large water-works that were projected for the supply of the greater part of London. The prevention of fire was one of the articles that the parties held out in their prospectus as one of the inducements to subscribers and to the public to come forward to encourage these water-works, and of all other parties I expected that the fire-offices would be the more ready to attend to it; however, after giving the thing a good deal of consideration, and going to one or two of the offices, I was surprised to find the great indifference they had towards it, and I inquired how it was, and I remember one of the officers told me the truth was that they gave themselves little concern about, because it did not injure them; I said, "How does it not injure you, have not you to pay the losses?" His reply

was,

that if they had not fires occasionally they would have no insurances.

Hardman Earle, Esq., Managing Director of the Liverpool and Manchester Railroad, examined.

The first accident we had, I think, was occasioned by a single waggon of merchandise catching fire, and being communicated to the next it was entirely consumed, and the waggons also. We have, I should state, frequently on the sides of the road set on fire the long grass in summer-time; and the furze bushes have also been set on fire; and our attention has been consequently called

to it, and we have devised several means to obviate it. Your lordships are aware that a sudden blast up the chimney carries the coke along with it; the vacuum in the chimney formed by the steam being discharged into it causes the air to rush through the fireplace, carrying up with it out of the top of the chimney small particles of coke; we were under the impression that the accident arose from that cause, but we have since discovered that that was not the case; we put on the chimney-top what we called a bonnet made of wire with small meshes, which prevented any large embers escaping up the chimney, but we still found we were liable to accidents; we then discovered that it was the coke dropping through the bars, and falling upon the wheel going with great velocity was thrown a considerable distance. In all the accidents we have had on the road we found that it was those waggons in the train, two or three removed from the engine, which took fire, and therefore it could not arise from any thing that was cast out of the chimney, because those particles describe a very large arch and come down farther behind the train; and this led us to put what we call ash-boxes beneath the fire-place. Still we found when those got full, the cinders, by the shaking of the road, dropped out, and we were still liable to meet with accidents, and we now therefore have them inclosed back and front. There certainly has been since a difference in some measure in the draught through the fire-place of the engine, but not such as to impair its efficiency, and we have had no accident since that was done. The waggons consumed at the first accident contained cotton wool; there were about 2001. or 300l. worth destroyed; and at the last accident 3000l. worth of merchan dise, it being unfortunately silk goods. We paid for the damage, but I believe it was rather a doubtful point whether we were really obliged to pay, the goods being silk, and not specially mentioned as silk goods; but we did pay; we thought it our interest to pay, and we thought it right besides; it being a contingency which the parties did not and could not expect. There have been minor accidents, such as females having their shawls burnt, small holes in them, and men in the second-class trains, which are open, having some holes burnt in their coats; but since we have had the engines fitted up with those bonnets and ash-boxes we have not had any serious accidents, and do not expect we shall. But I should state there are other engines on the road besides those belonging to the Company; there are engines belonging to the Bolton Company and to colliers on the line; and the latter are not quite so particular, as the article they carry is not of that combustible nature as to be