It was owing chiefly to the difficulty of forging long iron pieces, and of welding them together in a satisfactory manner, that, for many years after lightning conductors had been introduced into Europe, there were constant attempts made to find substitutes for the rods devised by Franklin. Chains were largely used towards the end of the last and the beginning of the present century, both in France and Germany, their employment having been suggested by the example of the English navy, where they were introduced, as already mentioned, upon the recommendation of Dr. Watson. The Continental mode of using iron chains for the protection of buildings against lightning was to hang them between the upper part of the conductor, surmounting the roof, which continued to be a straight piece of metal or rod, and the lower portion buried in the ground, sometimes, but not always, likewise a chain, but thicker than the rest. The characteristic of this method, and showing its long existence, is that it gave rise to a nomenclature existing to this day in France and Germany, where in all books on lightning conductors they are described as consisting of three distinct parts. The French call the upper part of the rod, over the roof, ‘_la tige_,’ the stem or stalk; and the Germans, ‘_die Auffangstange_’ literally the reception-rod. In both languages the middle part, from the roof downwards to the earth’s surface, is described as the conductor proper, ‘_le conducteur_’ and ‘_der Leiter_.’ Again, the lowest underground part of the conductor is designated, by the French, ‘_la racine_,’ the root, and by the Germans as ‘_der Bodenleiter_,’ or the ground-conductor. It has often been said that, as language springs from ideas, so it reacts upon them, and if the proposition be true, as most will admit, the French and German designations of the parts of lightning conductors--also to be found in Italian, and adopted in a few of the older English treatises on the subject, mostly translations--have a strongly misleading tendency. Nothing could be further from the truth than the assertion that a conductor ought to consist of three distinct parts. On the contrary, the more it is ‘one and undivided,’ the better it will be as a lightning protector.