_Best Method of securing a Powder Magazine from Lightning._
----You may acquaint the gentleman that desired you to enquire
my opinion of the best method of securing a powder magazine from
lightning, that I think they cannot do better than to erect a mast
not far from it, which may reach fifteen or twenty feet above the top
of it, with a thick iron rod in one piece fastened to it, pointed at
the highest end, and reaching down through the earth till it comes
to water. Iron is a cheap metal; but if it were dearer, as this is
a public thing the expence is insignificant; therefore I would have
the rod at least an inch thick, to allow for its gradually wasting by
rust; it will last as long as the mast, and may be renewed with it.
The sharp point for five or six inches should be gilt.
But there is another circumstance of importance to the strength,
goodness, and usefulness of the powder, which does not seem to have
been enough attended to: I mean the keeping it perfectly dry. For
want of a method of doing this, much is spoiled in damp magazines,
and much so damaged as to become of little value.--If, instead of
barrels it were kept in cases of bottles well corked; or in large tin
canisters, with small covers shutting close by means of oiled paper
between, or covering the joining on the canister; or if in barrels,
then the barrels lined with thin sheet lead; no moisture in either of
these methods could possibly enter the powder, since glass and metals
are both impervious to water.
By the latter of these means you see tea is brought dry and crisp
from China to Europe, and thence to America, though it comes all the
way by sea in the damp hold of a ship. And by this method, grain,
meal, &c. if well dried before it is put up, may be kept for ages
sound and good.
There is another thing very proper to line small barrels with; it
is what they call tin-foil, or leaf-tin, being tin milled between
rollers till it becomes as thin as paper, and more pliant, at the
same time that its texture is extremely close. It may be applied
to the wood with common paste, made with boiling-water thickened
with flour; and, so laid on; will lie very close and stick well:
but I should prefer a hard sticky varnish for that purpose, made of
linseed oil much boiled. The heads might be lined separately, the tin
wrapping a little round their edges. The barrel, while the lining is
laid on, should have the end hoops slack, so that the staves standing
at a little distance from each other, may admit the head into its
groove. The tin-foil should be plyed into the groove. Then, one head
being put in, and that end hooped tight, the barrel would be fit to
receive the powder, and when the other head is put in and the hoops
drove up, the powder would be safe from moisture even if the barrel
were kept under water. This tin-foil is but about eighteen pence
sterling a pound, and is so extremely thin, that I imagine a pound of
it would line three or four powder-barrels.