them, there was included in the Civil Service Estimates laid before the House of Commons in the session of 1855 a vote of 2,314_l._, on account of ‘works necessary for securing the new Houses of Parliament against danger from lightning.’ The vote passed without demur. It was in the height of the Crimean War fever, political questions absorbing all others. Perhaps in a time of less excitement some voice might have been raised in the House of Commons asking whether it was wise to spend over 2,000_l._ in putting up lightning conductors, without previously ascertaining, from the best scientific authorities, that the system adopted was the best, and absolutely efficacious. The strongly recommended ‘copper tubes,’ with their ‘screw plugs and coupling pieces,’ were at least a novelty, not having stood the test of experience, and there were practical men who shook their heads when they heard of them. However, with war discussions raging fiercely, and reports of battles and sieges absorbing all attention, the House of Commons had no time to bestow upon such trifling matters as that involved in the plans of Sir William Snow Harris; and thus the vote passed unchallenged. Perhaps silent repentance came afterwards to the official mind. At any rate, as it was the first, so it was the last time of Parliament granting money for lightning conductors. [Illustration] CHAPTER IX. THE BEST MATERIAL FOR CONDUCTORS. ‘The art of protection against lightning,’ says a recent German writer, in a book on conductors, ‘is precisely the same now as it was a hundred years ago: still, it has made immense progress since that time.’ Though apparently involving a paradox, the words nevertheless are literally true. The art, or rather science, of guarding objects against the destructive effects of lightning is theoretically the same as it was in the days of Benjamin Franklin; nevertheless, the practical execution of the appliances necessary to attain this aim has undergone extraordinary improvements since that time. This has been due simply to the astounding progress of the metallurgical arts for the last forty or fifty years. With the help of machinery on a colossal scale, such as was never dreamt of before, our factories have come to produce metallic masses of dimensions and shapes such as make all former achievements of the kind appear utterly insignificant. We build huge iron ships, armed with cannon of ponderous weight; we throw iron bridges across rivers and arms of the sea; we lay metallic cables through the ocean and over the earth, encircling the globe. All these wonderful achievements, in which the development of engineering science went hand in hand with that of tool-making and the ever-growing employment of the power of steam, have gone to the constant improvement of lightning conductors. They have benefited, indirectly, in the result of great inventions, and of immense toil and labour, originally directed to other ends.