A story was formerly repeated in Germany, after Father Angelo Cortenoria, that the tomb of the hero of Clusium, Lars Porsena, described by Varro, ornamented with a bronze head and bronze pendent chains, was an apparatus for atmospheric electricity, or for conducting lightning, (as were, according to Michaelis, the metal points on Solomon's temple); but the tale obtained currency at a time when men were much inclined to attribute to ancient nations the remains of a supernaturally revealed primitive knowledge, which was soon after obscured.

The most important notice of the relation between lightning and conducting metals (a fact not difficult of discovery) still appears to be that of Ctesias: he possessed two iron swords, presents from the King Artaxerxes Mnemon, and from his mother Parysatis, which, when planted in the earth, averted clouds, hail, and strokes of lightning. He had himself seen the operation, for the king had twice made the experiment before his eyes.

The exact attention paid by the Etruscans to the meteorological processes of the atmosphere in all that deviated from the ordinary course of phenomena, makes it to be lamented that nothing has come down to us from their Fulgur red books. The epochs of the appearance of great comets, of the fall of meteoric stones, and of showers of falling stars, would no doubt have been found recorded in them, as in the more ancient Chinese annals, of which Edward Biot has made use. Creuzer has attempted to show, that the natural features of Etruria may have influenced the peculiar turn of mind of its inhabitants. A "calling forth" of the lightning, which is ascribed to Prometheus, reminds us of the pretended "drawing down" of lightning by the Fulguratores. This operation consisted in a mere conjuration, and may well have been of no more efficacy than the skinned ass' head, which, in the Etruscan rites, was considered a preservative from danger in their thunder-storms.—(See Notes to Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. ii.)