A new invention, the object of which is to avert hailstorms, acting in the same manner as the electric conductors for obviating danger from lightning. In this climate the hail is seldom so violent as to occasion any very serious losses; but in many parts of the continent it is dreaded as the most destructive enemy of the husbandman, and has given rise to the establishment of insurance companies, to compensate the sufferers. The inventor of the paragrandine is a Signor Apostolla. One of the latest accounts of its beneficial effects was published by Antonio Perotti, who states, that having, on a piece of land belonging to himself, containing 16,000 perches in extent, fixed up several of the paragrandines, he had the satisfaction to find that no injury was done by hail to the corn, and very little to the vines, although no less than fourteen storms had occurred in the current year, five of which appeared to threaten great mischief to his fields, but passed over them, and fell on the neighbouring lands. These instruments are composed of metallic points and straw ropes, bound together with hempen or flaxen threads. Dr. Astolfi relates that in a hail-storm the clouds were seen to disperse on passing over lands protected by paragrandines.

A notice contained in an official report to the Milan government by the Gon-falonieve of St. Pietro, in Casale, also states, that during a stormy day, when there were many claps of thunder and flashes of lightning, he went out to observe the effects of the paragrandine, and noticed that the electric- fluid was attracted by the points of straw in the apparatus, around which the flame played in graceful curves; while in the adjoining field, not protected by the paragrandine, much rain fell, and the lightning did considerable mischief. We have thought it proper to introduce this notice of a foreign invention, as it appears to be capable of beneficial application in this country in the protection of agricultural produce collected in stack-yards.