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From repeated observations of this kind, there is reason to believe, the quantity of lightning at particular times is so very great, that it would be dangerous to invite it to any buildings, and that unnecessarily, in the most powerful manner we are able; by suffering the several conductors to end in a point at the top.
On which account, it is apprehended, pointed bars, or rods of metal, ought always to be avoided.
And as the lightening must visit us, some way or other, from necessity, to restore the equilibrium, there can be no reason to invite it at all: but, on the contrary, when it happens to attack our buildings, we ought only so to contrive our apparatus, as to be able to carry the lightening away again by such suitable conductors, properly fixed, as will very little, if at all, promote any encrease of it's quantity.
To attain which desirable end, in some degree at least, it is proposed, that the several buildings remain as they are at the top; that is, without having any metal above them, either pointed or not, by way of a conductor.
On the inside of the highest part of such building, and within a foot or two of the top, it may be proper to fix a rounded bar of metal, and to continue it down along the side of the wall to any kind of moisture in the ground.
But if the building happens to be mounted with an iron spindle, for supporting a vane, or other ornament, and it should not be convenient to have it taken away, then the bar of metal ought to communicate with that spindle.
And in regard to the diameter of such a metal bar, it will probably depend upon the height
Vol. LIL.
