The inquiries into lightning protection instituted by the ‘Académie des Sciences,’ and resulting in two reports, the second valuable in the highest degree, had the good effect, not only of drawing public attention to the necessity of providing such safeguards, but of bringing the whole matter under due scientific control. Henceforth the ground was cut away under ‘lightning-rod men,’ perambulating towns and villages, and offering their trumpery ware--mostly bits of wire tied together, with perhaps a lacquered piece of wood on the top--to credulous persons, as a substitute for good conductors. The French Government set a laudable example in appealing for the future always to scientific aid. A few months after the publication of the ‘Instruction sur les paratonnerres,’ drawn up by Professor Pouillet, a decision was come to for protecting the new wings of the Louvre, at Paris, with the most perfect lightning conductor that could be made, and thereupon appeal for counsel was once more made to the ‘Académie des Sciences.’ The case was one of special interest. The palace of the Louvre, with its inestimable treasures of art, had been the first public building in France provided with a lightning conductor. It was due to the initiative of an enthusiastic admirer of Benjamin Franklin, David Le Roy, that this was accomplished, he having excited the public feeling as to the dangers from lightning to which the Louvre was exposed to such a degree as to compel the Government, in 1782, to carry out his plans, under his own superintendence. The conductors erected by Le Roy had stood the test of experience from 1782 until the year 1854, many a thunderstorm having passed over the extensive buildings of the Louvre without causing the least damage. But, in the last month of 1854, one more lightning cloud swept along the banks of the river Seine, and the electric fire, falling on one of the chimneys of the palace, knocked off a few bricks. The damage was very trifling, but the alarm nevertheless was great, and very naturally so. If there was one building in France, it was said, which ought to be beyond the risk of being struck by lightning, it was the Louvre, and, if this could not be accomplished, the art of constructing protective conductors was altogether vain and ineffectual. It was under these circumstances, incited by the public outcry, that the Government hastened to submit the new case to the ‘Académie des Sciences.’