ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN ALL ABOUT LIGHTNING

It is a common misconception that 1ightning rods discharge clouds and thus prevent lightning. Actually lightning rods only serve to route the 1ightning harmlessly to ground. In doing so they divert the lightning when it is 10 to 100 yards away. In 1749 Benjamin Franklin wrote a letter which was pub-lished in Gentlemen’s Magazine, May 1750. It read, in part, There is something however in the experiments of points, sending off or drawing on the electrical fire, which has not been fully explained, and which I intend to supply in my text... from what I have observed on experiments, I am of opinion that houses, ships, and even towers and churches may be eventually secured from the strokes of lightning by their means; for if instead of the round balls of wood or metal which are commonly placed on the tops of weather-cocks, vanes, or spindles of churches, spires, or masts, ther