From out of the almost endless number of cases in which lightning conductors failed for want of a good earth connection, another one or two may be given, illustrated as having happened quite recently in England, and as such showing, in a very striking manner, in what a neglected state the knowledge of the subject still is at this moment. A thunderstorm passed over the town of Clevedon, Somersetshire, in the afternoon of March 15, 1876, and a flash of lightning fell upon the steeple of Christchurch, provided, as was generally thought, with a most efficient conductor of recent construction, made of good copper rope. What happened is graphically and minutely told in a letter addressed to the ‘Journal of the Society of Telegraph Engineers,’ by Mr. Eustace Buttor, of Lewesfell, near Clevedon. ‘There was but a single flash,’ Mr. Buttor relates, ‘which appeared to many observers to travel horizontally through the air. However, the lightning passed down the lightning conductor of Christchurch. The flag-staff, about 100 feet high, and the four pinnacles, about 90 feet high, have each a conductor, the flag-staff having the usual conical point, the pinnacles having the copper rope attached to their vanes. The five copper ropes unite inside the tower in the neighbourhood of the clock. Lower down the conductor passes through a slanting hole to the outside, and for the lowest 12 feet is encased in a pipe. On reaching the ground it passes into a dry freestone channel for about a dozen feet, and then dips down into the drain which carries rain-water from the roof. As no rain preceded or accompanied the flash, it may be presumed that _the drain was dry_.