Facts from Czech History
 A modern-day version of the Diviš lightning conductor - picture reproduced with permission of Jiri Hora from his site |
1754: Prokop Diviš (1698-1765), a Catholic priest and natural scientist, built the first lightning conductor at Přímĕtice, near Znojmo in Moravia. He had been working at the same time as, but independently of, Benjamin Franklin, who is also credited with the invention, but six years earlier; Franklin published his theory on conducting lightning in 1753. Unlike Franklin’s, Diviš’s ‘atmospheric machine’ was properly earthed. Its construction was followed by a long drought, which made the good people of Přímĕtice furious, so they destroyed it! Diviš also solved the water supply problem at the vicarage, constructed a kind of organ that imitated various different instruments, and published a book on ‘natural magic’, on his experiments with electrotherapy. |
