I will give you some recent and striking examples. In the month of May, 1879, the church of Laughton-en-le-Morthen, in England, though provided with a conductor, was struck by lightning and sustained considerable damage. On examination it was found that the lightning followed the conductor down along the spire as far as the roof; then, changing its course, it forced its way through a buttress of massive masonwork, dislodging about two cartloads of stones, and leaped over to the leads of the roof, about six feet distant. It now followed the leads until it came to the cast-iron down-pipes intended to discharge the rain-water, and through these it descended to the earth. When the earth contact of the lightning conductor was examined, it was found exceedingly deficient. The rod was simply bent underground, and buried in dry loose rubbish at a depth not exceeding eighteen inches. This is a very instructive example. The lightning had a choice of two paths--one by the conductor prepared for it, the other by the leads of the roof and the down-pipes--and, by a kind of instinct which, however we may explain, we must always contemplate with wonder, it chose the path of least resistance, though in doing so it had to burst its way at the outset through a massive wall of solid masonry.[31] On the 5th of June, in the same year, a flash of lightning struck the house of Mr. Osbaldiston, near Sheffield, and, notwithstanding the supposed protection of a lightning conductor, it did damage to the amount of about five hundred pounds. The lightning here followed the conductor to a point about nine feet from the ground, then passed through a thick wall to a gas-pipe at the back of the drawing-room mirror. It melted the gas-pipe, set fire to the gas, smashed the mirror to atoms, broke the Sevres vases on the chimney-piece, and dashed the furniture about. In this case, as in the former, it was found that the earth contact was bad; and, in addition, the conductor itself was of too small dimensions. Hence, the electric discharge found an easier path to earth through the gas-pipes, though to reach them it had to force for itself a passage through a resisting mass of non-conductors.[32]