the passage of any solid thunderbolt.

But it was the introduction and general employment of lightning-rods
that dealt a final deathblow to the thunderbolt theory. A
lightning-conductor consists essentially of a long piece of metal,
pointed at the end whose business it is, not so much (as most people
imagine) to carry off the flash of lightning harmlessly, should it
happen to strike the house to which the conductor is attached, but
rather to prevent the occurrence of a flash at all, by gradually and
gently drawing off the electricity as fast as it gathers before it has
had time to collect in sufficient force for a destructive discharge. It
resembles in effect an overflow pipe which drains off the surplus water
of a pond as soon as it runs in, in such a manner as to prevent the
possibility of an inundation, which might occur if the water were
allowed to collect in force behind a dam or embankment. It is a
flood-gate, not a moat: it carries away the electricity of the air
quietly to the ground, without allowing it to gather in sufficient
amount to produce a flash of lightning. It might thus be better called
a lightning-preventer than a lightning-conductor: it conducts
electricity, but it prevents lightning. At first, all lightning-rods
used to be made with knobs on the top, and then the electricity used to
collect at the surface until the electric force was sufficient to cause
a spark. In those happy days, you had the pleasure of seeing that the
lightning was actually being drawn off from your neighbourhood
piecemeal. Knobs, it was held, must be the best things, because you
could incontestably see the sparks striking them with your own eyes. But
as time went on, electricians discovered that if you fixed a fine metal
point to the conductor of an electric machine it was impossible to get
up any appreciable charge because the electricity kept always leaking
out by means of the point. Then it was seen that if you made your
lightning-rods pointed at the end, you would be able in the same way to
dissipate your electricity before it ever had time to come to a head in
the shape of lightning. From that moment the thunderbolt was safely dead
and buried. It was urged, indeed, that the attempt thus to rob Heaven of
its thunders was wicked and impious; but the common-sense of mankind
refused to believe that absolute omnipotence could be sensibly defied by
twenty yards of cylindrical iron tubing. Thenceforth the thunderbolt
ceased to