ISBN: 9780217956826

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either pa… Plus…

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. Books treatise-on-lightning-conductors~~Lucius-Lyon General Books LLC Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: NATURAL ARTIFICIAL ELECTRICITY. Electricity considered in relation to Common Matter. Before entering upon the subject of the application of metallic substances to buildings and ships, with a view to their protection from lightning, it may not be unimportant to review the amount of information we are in possession of, relative to the nature and operation of thunderstorms. A large induction of facts, leaves little doubt of the existence of some elementary or primordial principle in nature, every where present, and intimately associated with the particles of common matter, according to some general law. In what this element consists, we are quite ignorant; we know, however, that there is such a constituent principle, and that it is capable of exerting, under given circumstances, an all-powerful action; hence it may be considered as aspecies of unknown physical force or agency, the laws of which it is our business to investigate. Now it is no objection to the practical results of such an inquiry, to say that we are ignorant of the nature of the ageucy with which we are dealing?it being the great end of modern philosophy rather to trace, and apply the uniform relations of certain facts, than to speculate upon the nature of the mysterious causation, upon which the connection depends. Thus Newton was content to examine the laws of gravity, and the relations of this force to common matter, without in any way meddling with its nature as an occult cause; and from this method of inquiry the happiest consequences have resulted. The same method is equally applicable to the subtle principle active in a thunderstorm: we may arrive at all the practical information we require relative to this grand yet fearful display of its powers, even although we should never understand its natu...<