When other buildings happen to be within the striking distance from such clouds, the fluid passes in the walls, whether of wood, brick, or stone, quitting the wall only when it can find better conductors near them, as metal rods, bolts, and hinges of windows or doors, gilding on wainscot, or frames of pictures, the silvering on the backs of looking-glasses, the wires for bells, and the bodies of animals, so containing watery fluids. And in passing through the house it follows the direction of these conductors, taking as many in its way as can assist in its passage, whether in a straight or crooked line, leaping from one to the other, if not far distant from each other, only rending the wall in the spaces where these partial good conductors are too distant from each other. An iron rod being placed on the outside of a building, from the highest part continued down into the moist earth, in any direction, straight or crooked, following the form of the roof or other parts of the building, will receive the lightning at its upper end, attracting it so as to prevent its striking any other part; and, affording it a good conveyance into the earth, will prevent its damaging any part of the building. A small quantity of metal is found able to conduct a quantity of this fluid. A wire no higher than a goose-quill has been known to conduct (with safety to the building, as far as the wire was continued) a quantity of lightning that did prodigious damage both above and below it; and probably larger rods are not necessary, though it is common in America to make them of half an inch, some three-quarters, or an inch, diameter. The rod may be fastened to the wall, chimney, &c., with staples of iron. The lightning will not leave the rod (a good conductor) to pass into the wall (a bad conductor) through those staples. It would rather, if any were in the wall, pass out of it into the rod, to get more readily by that conductor into the earth. If the building be very large and extensive, two or more rods may be placed in different parts, for greater security. Small ragged parts of clouds, suspended in the air between the great body of clouds and the earth, (like leaf gold in electrical experiments,) often serve as partial conductors for the lightning, which proceeds from one of them to another, and by their help comes within the striking distance to the earth or a building. It therefore strikes, through those conductors, a building that would otherwise be out of the striking distance. Long sharp points communicating with the earth, and presented to such parts of clouds, drawing silently from them the fluid they are charged with, they are then attracted to the cloud, and may leave the distance so great as to be beyond the reach of striking. It is therefore that we elevate the upper end of the rod, six or eight feet above the highest part of the building, tapering it gradually to a fine sharp point, which is gilt, to prevent its rusting.