FOOTNOTE:

[74] The wire mentioned in this account was re-placed by a small brass chain. In the summer of 1763, the lightning again struck that steeple, and from the clock-hammer near the bell, it pursued the chain as it had before done the wire, went off to the same hinge, and again shattered the same door. In its passage through the same holes of the same floors, it did no damage to the floors, nor to the building during the whole extent of the chain. But the chain itself was destroyed, being partly scattered about in fragments of two or three links melted and stuck together, and partly blown up or reduced to smoke, and dissipated. [See an account of the same effect of lightning on a wire at Newbury, p. 311.] The steeple, when repaired, was guarded by an iron conductor, or rod, extending from the foot of the vane-spindle down the outside of the building, into the earth. The newspapers have mentioned, that in 1765, the lightning fell a third time on the same steeple, and was safely conducted by the rod; but the particulars are not come to hand.