Lightning Conductors.—­In connection with physical science, a curious passage occurs in the Mahawanso which gives rise to a conjecture that early in the third century after Christ, the Singhalese had some dim idea of the electrical nature of lightning, and a belief, however erroneous, of the possibility of protecting their buildings by means of conductors.

The notices contained in THEOPHRASTUS and PLINY show that the Greeks and the Romans were aware of the quality of attraction exhibited by amber and tourmaline.[1] The Etruscans, according to the early annalists of Borne, possessed the power of invoking and compelling thunder storms.[2] Numa Pompilius would appear to have anticipated Franklin by drawing lightning from the clouds; and Tullus Hostilius, his successor, was killed by an explosion, whilst attempting unskilfully the same experiment.[3]

[Footnote 1:  The electrical substances “lyncurium” and “theamedes” have each been conjectured to be the “tourmaline” which, is found in Ceylon.]

[Footnote 2:  “Vel cogi fulmina vel impetrari.” —­PLINY, Nat.  Hist. lib. ii. ch. lii.]

[Footnote 3:  Ibid.  There is an interesting paper on the subject of the knowledge of electricity possessed by the ancients, by Dr. FALCONER in the Memoirs of the Manchester Philosophical Society, A.D. 1788, vol. iii. p. 279.]

CTESIAS, a contemporary of Xenophon, spent much of his life in Persia, and says that he twice saw the king demonstrate the efficacy of an iron sword planted in the ground in dispersing clouds, hail, and lightning[1]; and the knowledge of conduction is implied by an expression of LUCAN, who makes Aruns, the Etrurian flamen, concentrate the flashes of lightning and direct them beneath the surface of the earth:—­

  “dispersos fulminus ignes
  Colligit, et terrae maesto cum murmure cendit.”
  Phars. lib. i. v. 606.

[Footnote 1:  PHOTIUS, who has preserved the fragment (Bibl. lxxii.), after quoting the story of CTESIAS as to the iron it question being found in a mysterious Indian lake, adds, regarding the sword, [Greek:  “phesi oe peri autou hoti pegnimenos en te ge nephous kai chalazes kai presteron estin apotropaios.  Kai idein auton tauta phesi Basileos dis poiesantos.”] See BAEHR’S C’tesiae Reliquiae, &c., p. 248, 271.]

There is scarcely an indication in any work that has come down to us from the first to the fifteenth century, that the knowledge of such phenomena survived in the western world; but the books of the Singhalese contain allusions which demonstrate that in the third and in the fifth century it was the practice in Ceylon to apply mechanical devices with the hope of securing edifices from lightning.