196 HISTORY OF ELECTRICITY. 



Priestley says, 8 "makes a principal part 01' the :li version of gentlemen 

 and ladies \vlio come to see experiments in electricity,'' was first observed 

 by Dufay and the Abbe Xollet. Xollet says 7 he "shall never forget 

 the surprise which the first electric spark ever drawn from the human 

 body excited, both in M. Dufay and in himself." The drawing of a spark 

 from the human body was practised in various forms, one of which 

 was familiarly known as the " electrical kiss." Other exhibitions of 

 electrical light were the electrical star, electrical rain, and the like. 



As electricians determined more exactly the conditions of electrical 

 action, they succeeded in rendering more intense those sudden actions 

 which the spark accompanies, and thus produced the electric shock: 

 This was especially done in the Ley Jen plnal. This apparatus re- 

 ceived its name, while the discovery of its property was attributed to 

 Cunajus, a native of Leyden, who, in 1746, handling a vessel contain- 

 ing water in communication with the electrical machine, and happen- 

 in thus to bring the inside and the outside into connexion, received a 



o o / 



sudden shock in his arms and breast. It appears, however, 8 that a 

 shock had been received under nearly the same circumstances in 

 1*745, by Yon Klcist, a German prelate, at Camin, in Pomerania. 

 The strangeness of this occurrence, and the suddenness of the blow, 

 much exaggerated the estimate which men formed of its force. Mus- 

 chenbroek, after taking one shock, declared he would not take a 

 second for the kingdom of France ; though Boze, with a more mag- 

 nanimous spirit, wished 9 that he might die by such a stroke, and 

 have the circumstances of the experiment recorded in the Memoirs of 

 the Academy. But we may easily imagine what a new fame and 

 interest this discovery gave to the subject of electricity. It was re- 

 peated in all parts of the world, with various modifications : and the 

 shock was passed through a line of several persons holding hands ; 

 Xollet, in the presence of the king of France, sent it through a circle 

 of 180 men of the guards, and along a line of men and wires of 900 

 tuises ; 10 and experiments of the same kind were made in England, 

 principally under the direction of AVatson, on a scale so large as to 

 excite the admiration of Musehenbroek ; who says, in a letter to Wat- 

 son, "Magnificentissimis tuis experimentis superasti conatus omnium." 

 The result was, that the transmission of electricity through a length 



> _ o 



of 12,000 feet was, to sense, instantaneous. 



6 P. p. 47. T Priestley, p. 47. Xollet, Lerons Je Physique, vol. vi. p. 408 

 8 Fischer, v. 490. 9 Fischer, p. 84. 10 Ibid. v. 512. 



