An account of the death of a person destroyed by lightning in the chapel in Tottenham-Court-Road, and its effects on the building, as observed by Mr. William Henly, Mr. Edward Nairne, and Mr. William Jones / the account written by Mr. Henly.

  • Henley, William, -1779.
Date:
1773
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An account of the death of a person destroyed by lightning in the chapel in Tottenham-Court-Road, and its effects on the building, as observed by Mr. William Henly, Mr. Edward Nairne, and Mr. William Jones / the account written by Mr. Henly. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/12 (page 4)
    quite round the building. In this gutter was ereCted a (mail lanthorn, in which hung the bell of the clock. A little pipe of lead was foldered to, and extended perpendicularly a few inches above, the furface of the gutter ; through this pipe went a fmall iron wire con¬ futing of many long links, connected with the taiL of the hammer ; paffing thence within a few inches of the ftriking rod of the clock, to which it was tied by a ftrong hempen firing 6 inches or more in length. The lightning firft flruck the pine-apple, the upper part of which it fhivered into very fmall fragments, and threw them in all directions from the place, and melted off the end of one of the fpikes. It left a fmoky track upon the under-part of it, and then flruck the edge of the lead upon the plinth, which it melted in two places, quite through the fubftance of it. A little below thefe I found a third fpot j this was melted in a very regular and curious con¬ cave about an 4-th of an inch diameter at the fur- face, with a fmall perforation at the bottom, through, which I think might have been introduced one of the finefl fort of fewing needles. The whole figure fome- what refembled a fmall funnel It palled thence by a regular communication of metal,, till it reached the wire of the clock hammer before fpoken of, melting, it about half through its diameter, which, in this place, was lefs than the twelfth part of an inch. The edge of. the lead pipe from which it leaped to the wire was alfo much melted. The wire was melted at every jundlure of the links; the packthread at the bottom was but little injured, but the eleCtric matter leaped through, * Quere, is not this a token of the ftroke’s being from the- clouds downwards ? a few*