Notwithstanding the short use of his own special naval work which gave him fame, Sir William Snow Harris effected much in the interest of lightning protection in general. He was one of the few men in England who insisted that it was the duty of the Government, as well as of private individuals, to place lightning conductors upon all objects liable to be struck, arguing that it was little less than criminal to neglect such a simple protection against overwhelming danger. It was with some degree of vehemence, though not more perhaps than was requisite, that he stood out against those who objected to conductors because they ‘attracted’ lightning. Such assertion will, at the present day, be regarded as foolish by all persons possessed of the least scientific knowledge; but this was not by any means the case forty or fifty years ago, when even well-educated men denounced conductors. A civil engineer in the service of the British Government, Mr. F. McTaggart, sent to Canada in 1826, recommended openly the pulling-down of all lightning conductors in that colony, and this too in the name of ‘science,’ of which he held himself to be an enlightened disciple. ‘Science,’ wrote Mr. McTaggart, in a book he published,[2] ‘has every cause to dread the thunder-rods of Franklin; they attract destruction, and houses are safer without than with them. Were they able to carry off the fluid they have the means of attracting, then there could be no danger; but this they are by no means able to do.’ Had such reasonings as these been merely the senseless talk of a few individuals, the harm done might not have been great. But it was quite otherwise. Men of power and position, if not of high education, were imbued profoundly with the same ideas as Mr. McTaggart, as evidenced in at least one striking instance, which would be scarcely credible were it not on official record. In the year 1838, the Governor-General and Council of the East India Company actually ordered that all the lightning rods should be removed from their public buildings, including the arsenals and powder magazines, throughout India. The rulers of the great country had come to their decision, as they stated, by the advice of their ‘scientific officers,’ who all apparently shared Mr. McTaggart’s belief of the perils of ‘the thunder rods of Franklin.’ It was partly on the representation of the energetic vindicator of lightning conductors in Plymouth, that the order for their destruction in India was soon countermanded by the authorities in Leadenhall Street, but not before several buildings had been destroyed, among them a large magazine at Dumdum, and a corning-house at Magazine. As often before, so now, lightning itself proved the most powerful advocate of conductors, and in India they were more quickly set up than they had been thrown down.