Augustus was wont to retire to a subterranean vault during a storm, and it is said the Japanese emperors had a similar custom, having the additional precaution of large reservoirs of water over the grottos. When away from home, Augustus usually wrapped himself in sealskin, believed, not only by the Romans, but by many others, to be lightning-proof. In some portions of France, the peasants believe snake skins to be an efficient anti-lightning charm. And among not a few of the ancients there was a belief prevalent that lightning never injured a person in bed. In the passage quoted from Byron on the bust of Ariosto, allusion is made to the belief that lightning never strikes the laurel-plant sacred to Apollo. Firm in this opinion, Tiberius, during thunder storms, put on a laurel crown; and similar virtue is to-day ascribed by the Chinese to peach and mulberry trees. Not a few persons to-day believe glass to be a safeguard, and that a person is safe beside a closed window. Seamen, and not a few of the peasantry of different regions, believe the firing of guns will break up a thunder storm. Tolling of church-bells is another powerful protection against the fires of the sky, which has cost many a bell-ringer his life; a tall steeple being unusually liable to be struck, and a damp bell-rope forming a good conductor. One authority tells us of three hundred and eighty-six steeples struck within thirty-three years, and one hundred and twenty-one bell-ringers killed. The preventive was all right; but these tollers had sinned away all right to protection, and perished as victims of Divine wrath, instead of an absurd custom. Such are some of the many illusory modes of protection in vogue in times past, and existing to no small extent in the present. Comment upon them is unnecessary. We know to-day that the higher objects are most liable to be struck, and that metals are the best conductors; and on these facts the whole system of lightning-rod protection is based.