The Abbé Richard has seen globules from a bell-wire fall into coffee cups, and become embedded in the porcelain, without the latter being any the worse. Metal wires supporting espaliers and vines are often compromising to the safety of their neighbourhood, especially when they are against a house. Without renouncing the succulent peach, or the golden chasselas grapes, propped on espaliers, we ought to see that they are so arranged that they do not act as lightning-conductors to our habitation. In August, 1868, in a farm amongst the mountains near Lyons, lightning fell at a distance of about fifteen metres from a dwelling where there were four people; the meteor, conducted by the wire supporting a vine on a trellis, followed it into the house, and knocked the four people down. One could almost believe that lightning takes a certain pleasure in looking at its diaphanous and fugitive form in the mirrors hung as ornaments in our drawing-rooms. In 1889, a very coquettish flash of lightning rushed to a mirror, breaking more than ten openings in the gilt frame. Then it evaporated the gilding, spreading it over the surface of the glass, while on the silvered back the evaporation of this latter metal produced the most beautiful electric traceries. Sometimes the tinfoil or pieces of melted glass are thrown to a great distance; and at times the fusion of the glass is so complete that the _débris_ hangs down like little stalactites. As for the gilding of the frames, it is often carefully removed by the lightning to a distance, and applied to the gilding of objects which were never intended to receive this style of decoration. It is just the same with the gilding on clocks, cornices, church ornaments, etc. There are innumerable examples coming under this category. Here are a few:-- On March 15, at Naples, lightning flashed through the rooms of Lord Tylney, who was holding a reception that evening. More than five hundred were present; without any person being injured, the lightning took the gilding clean off cornices, curtain-poles, couches, and door-posts; then it shook its booty in a fine gold dust over the guests and the floor. On June 4, 1797, lightning struck the steeple of Philippshofen in Bohemia, and went off with the gold of the clock, to gild the lead in the chapel window. In 1761, it went into the church of the Academical College in Vienna, and took the gold from the cornice of one of the altar pillars to put it on a silver vase. It seems difficult for lightning to resist the attraction of gildings. It was reported that when a house in the Rue Plumet in Paris was struck in 1767, among several frames hanging in a room, the spark only touched one which was gilt. None of the others were struck.