Makers of Electricity

by Brother Potamian; James J. Walsh

The identity of the lightning of our skies with the artificial electricity of our laboratories was suspected by many before the middle of the eighteenth century. Englishmen like Hauksbee, Hall, Gray, Freke, Martin and Watson; Germans like Bose and Winkler, and Frenchmen like Abbé Nollet, had already published their suspicions and conjectures anent the matter. Franklin, too, had indicated twelve points of analogy between the two, in 1749, in his letter to Collinson, of London. Though he felt the force of the analogical agreement, he also felt that the matter could not be definitely settled without an appeal to experiment. Accordingly, he added: "The electric fluid is attracted by points; we do not know whether this property is in lightning. But since they agree in all the particulars wherein we can already compare them, is it not probable that they agree likewise in this? Let the experiment be made."

Fig. 19 (Left) and Fig. 20 (Right)
The Divisch Lightning Conductor

The experiment was made by Franklin himself by means of his kite two years later, in the summer of 1752, and also by the lightning-rod which he erected over his own house in the autumn of the same year. Doubtless Divisch heard of the marvelous effects obtained from d'Alibard's insulated conductor at Marly; at any rate, he erected in an open space at some little distance from his rectory at Prenditz, a lightning conductor 130 feet in height. As will be seen from the illustration, it bristled with points, for the Bohemian wizard argued rightly that five points would be more efficient than one, and 50 more efficacious than five. The weird-looking structure destined to ward off the lightning of heaven had no less than 325 well-distributed points. Lodge says in his Lightning Conductors: "Points to the sky are recognized as correct; only I wish to advocate more of them, any number of them, like barbed wire along ridges and eaves. If you want to neutralize a thunder-bolt, three points are not as effective as 3000." This was written in 1892; nearly 140 years before that date, we find a simple parish priest of an obscure village in Moravia using precisely such a multiple system of short, pointed conductors for the protection of life and property. This lightning conductor or meteorological machine, as Divisch called it, was erected by him at Prenditz on June 15th, 1754. On the top of the rod will be seen three light vanes, which were added in the interest of the feathered race in order to prevent incautious members from incurring the risk of electrocution by alighting on the apparatus during a storm. The wind whirled the vanes round like the cups of an anemometer, and thus kept the birds away from the zone of danger.

Fig. 21
Set of Pointed Rods

Several trials came to the electrical Pastor, and from quarters least expected. It happened in the second year after the erection of the apparatus that the summer was unusually dry, in consequence of which the crops failed almost completely. The farmers of the neighborhood were always suspicious of the strange-looking mast of Prenditz; and, be it said, that they were more than diffident about the propriety of interfering with the forces of nature even under the plea of protection, forgetting that they took great care to protect themselves against heat and cold, rain, snow and hail. The country ladies, no doubt, used parasols for one kind of protection; and the gentry, umbrellas for another. Anyhow, the people of Prenditz and the good folk around did not like the lofty mast, with its outstretched arms and bristling rows of suspicious-looking iron points connected to the ground by means of four long, heavy chains. For the nonce, they deemed their Pastor a queer fellow, who thought that he could avert the anger of heaven by the oddest kind of a machine which they ever laid their eyes on. It was argued in the councils of the hamlets that, whatever advantages Divisch claimed for his "machine," they were all of a negative character. It prevented the lightning stroke, he said; that might be, but they did not see the prevention. What they did see and keenly realize was the failure of their crops. That affected them very closely; and if, as they supposed, the apparatus of Prenditz had anything to do with it, the sooner they got rid of the machine the better. Divisch, it must be said, was liked by his people; but despite his popularity, the men of violence carried the day and the machine was doomed. Popular passion, excited by personal interest, got the better of the consideration due to the Pastor. On an appointed day, a band of bellicose farmers came down on the village and wrecked the apparatus which had cost the priest so much thought and manual labor and on which, knowingly and justly, he relied for the protection of the homesteads of his rustic flock.

This recalls a similar incident of mob violence which occurred at St. Omer in the north of France, where a manufacturer of that quaint old town, who had been in America and seen the usefulness of lightning conductors, proceeded to erect one over his own house. Hardly was it completed before the populace gathered together; and, when passion was sufficiently aroused by inflammatory remarks of the demagogues, the house was attacked and the conductor torn down. The manufacturer complained of the inaction of the "gardiens de la paix" and appealed to the courts to uphold his right to protect his home against lightning. He entrusted his case to a young, brilliant lawyer, as yet unknown to fame, but one destined to achieve unenviable notoriety during the revolutionary period. This, the first defender of the lightning-rod in a court of justice, was Robespierre.