For one, we do not "envy" Professor Richmann's fate, and we think that the phrase "tragic manner" would better suit the circumstances of his death than the "glorious manner" of Dr. Priestley. Risks of a similar character were taken by Franklin in Philadelphia, de Romas in Bordeaux, and d'Alibard's representative at Marly, when experimenting with kites and insulated rods; they took their lives in their hands, though they may not have thought so. A few years ago, Sir William Preece said that a man might with impunity "clasp a copper rod an inch in diameter, the bottom of which is well connected with moist earth, while the top of it receives a violent flash of lightning; the conductor might even be surrounded by gunpowder in the heaviest storm without risk or danger." It is not on record that the English electrician ever clasped a lightning conductor or even stood in close proximity to one during an electric storm. The above statement was as sensational as it was unwise and foolhardy. The neighborhood of a rod during a storm is a zone of danger, owing to the electrical surgings which are set up in it, and, as such, is to be avoided. The death of Richmann caused quite a sensation throughout Europe, and naturally the lightning-rod came in for severe condemnation. Among the memoirs to which the fatality gave rise was one written in the heart of Moravia and addressed to the celebrated Euler, Director of the Academy of Sciences at Berlin. The writer was a monk of the Premonstratensian Order, whose field of labor was at Prenditz. In the year 1754, this country priest made experiments with lightning conductors on a scale that transcended anything done in Paris, London or Philadelphia. The accompanying illustrations show the conductor which Divisch (also Diwisch) raised at Prenditz (also Brenditz) in the summer of that year to demonstrate publicly the efficacy of such apparatus in breaking up thunder-clouds and neutralizing the destructive energy pent up in their electric charges. Prenditz, it would appear, suffered severely from electric storms; and it was mainly for the safety of the locality that the good priest devoted himself with earnestness to the study of electrical phenomena. As such a man deserves to live in the memory of posterity, we have sought out the leading facts of his career mainly from Father Alphons Zák, of Pernegg, in Lower Austria, a distinguished writer of the Order to which Divisch belonged, and have woven such details as we obtained from him and others into the simple narrative that follows. [Illustration: FIG. 18 Procopius Divisch (1696-1765)]