Tradition says that Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, was initiated by the priests of the Etruscan divinities, and instructed by them in the secret of forcing Jupiter, the Thunderer, to descend upon earth. Salverte believes that before Franklin discovered his refined electricity, Numa had experimented with it most successfully, and that Tullus Hostilius, the successor of Numa, was the first victim of the dangerous “heavenly guest” recorded in history. Salverte remarks that Pliny makes use of expressions which seem to indicate two distinct processes; the one obtained thunder (_impetrare_), the other forced it to lightning (_cogere_). Tracing back the knowledge of thunder and lightning possessed by the Etruscan priests, we find that Tarchon, the founder of the theurgism of the former, desiring to preserve his house from lightning, surrounded it by a hedge of the white bryony, a climbing plant which has the property of averting thunderbolts. The Temple of Juno had its roofs covered with numerous pointed blades of swords. Ben David, says the author of “Occult Sciences,” has asserted that Moses (born about 1570 B.C.) possessed some knowledge of the phenomena of electricity. Prof. Hirt, of Berlin, is of this opinion. Michaelis remarks that there is no indication that lightning ever struck the Temple of Jerusalem during a thousand years: that, according to Josephus, a forest of points, of gold and very sharp, covered the roof of the temple, and that this roof communicated with the caverns in the hill by means of pipes in connection with the gilding which covered all the exterior of the building, in consequence of which the points would act as conductors. Salverte further asserts that in the days of Ctesias--Ktesias--India was acquainted with the use of conductors of lightning. This historian plainly states that iron placed at the bottom of a fountain, and made in the form of a sword, with the point upward, possessed, as soon as it was thus fixed in the ground, the property of averting storms and lightning. “Ancient India, as described by Ktesias, the Knidian,” J. H. McCrindle, London, 1882, alludes, p. 68, to iron swords employed to ward off lightning. Reference is made to the _pantarbe_ at pp. 7–8, 69–70, and to the _elektron_ (amber) at pp. 20, 21, 23, 51, 52, 70, 86. See account of Ktesias in “Nouvelle Biogr. Génér.,” Vol. XII. pp. 568–571, and in “Larousse Dict.,” Vol. V. p. 614.