Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 July 1896 — LIGHTNING’S QUEER FREAKS. [ARTICLE]

LIGHTNING’S QUEER FREAKS.

tlnexpected Results of rMiny Strokes of tlie Electric Fluid. Few natural phenomena show so many eccentricities of behavior as Jove’s thunderbolts. ' Machine-made electricity, especially when playing the trudnt, is tricky enough, but the fiery product of the clouds is still more original, Inconsistent 'and lawless. In small towns, or ifi the outskirts of large ones, where the houses are detached from one another, and are 50 or 100 feet apart, one frequently hears of damage by lightning; it is seldom a row of brownstone fronted a block of stores, a fifteen or twenty story apartment house, or a sky-scraper office building, in those-portions of -a city which are built up solidly, is hurt! in any way. So long has this state of affairs existed and been recognized that it has affected the business of making and erecting lightning rods. If < a man should Institute a special search for such apparatus in the older part of the metropolis, with "an opera-glass in his hand and a high window or roof for his post of observation, he might well ask whether tire • lightning rod has not become, like the dodo, an extinct species. Eventually, a few, tall, slender church spires and certain classes of buildings under the control Of federal or municipal bureaus' would be found .displaying metallic bristles, connected by a copper cable with the ground.

But and the few other discoverable exceptions would only serve to emphasize the rule; Inquiry reveals, however, that an extensive business in lightning rods is still carried on. They are seen as frequently as ever in small towns and on farms. Occasionally, you willTiear of a man who has a house and big warehouses in the city which are not provided with these safeguards, but who employs them abundantly on his country house and stock barns. It is said that Mr. Edison and Mr. Westinghouse, who are supposed to know a thing of two about electricity, protect their houses and shops which are isolated structures in this way; and weather bureau experts and other scientists who have investigated the subject declare that a properly constructed' nghtning’Fdtl'lias a distinct value. It is clear, therefore, that this time-honored institution Is not going out of favor except in big cities. The singular indifference which the lightning Seems to . manifest toward great centers' of population is probably not due to the nonconducting qualities of the brick and stone So largely used there in the construction of buildings. On the other hand, most of the theories advanced to account for the puzzling phenomenon in question assume that, in some way or other, better facilities exist in and near great cities than elsewhere for relieving' a thunder cloud of the superabundant electricity and leading the same quietly to the earth. The vast number of chimneys, flagstaffs, spires and other upward projections from the roofs, especially when well wetted, facilitate a silent discharge in innumerable" small streams. The complicated network of telegraph and telephone wires reaching through the streets, high in air. has also been credited with disseminating a good deal of electricity .during thunderstorms. A third factor hi the situation may possibly be found in the steel frames of some of the modern high buildings. Certainly, if the metallic portions of the rods of one of these structures were properly connected with the frame, and if the latter reached down into permanently moist soil, the combination would, afford a lightning rod of exceptional efficiency and proportions. Distribute the credit among the various agents as one may, there is evidently a set of conditions existing In large cities which tend to lessen the violence of lightning there, and which appreciably affects the demand for lightning rods.