188 Sir W. Snow Harris on certain Phanomena 



into his cylinder, I consider as a mere coincidence, quite a 

 secondary affair; the experiments came to nothing, and the 

 "Immortal" Franklin gave these experiments with the '^wet 

 thread," " blade of green grass," &c., fairly quoted by Dr. Riess, 

 no encouragement whatever, as resulting from heat, and so the 

 whole matter dropped ; and it has not, so far as I know, been 

 ever revived until the present time. Now Dr. Riess labours to 

 show that my instrument was a studied copy of these old instru- 

 ments, Kinnersley's more especially, much in the same way as 

 he improved upon Behrens^ electroscope, or copied my instru- 

 ment ; whereas at the time I first invented my instrument)^ I 

 can most rigidly affirm that I had not the shadow of Kinners- 

 le/s air-electrometer in my mind. As I have stated, it origi- 

 nated at a pressing moment, in a necessity for demonstrating 

 experimentally to the Naval Department of the Government, 

 and the Scientific Commission appointed to investigate and 

 report on my method of securing the Royal Navy from liglit- 

 ning, the relative superiority of copper for that purpose over 

 iron, and some other metals ; at that time no very exact expe- 

 riments had appeared, more especially with the ordinary elec- 

 trical discharge. Now Dr. Wollaston, one of the most distin- 

 guished philosophers in Europe of that day, did not consider 

 the experiments I made with this instrument " unintelligible," 

 as Dr. Riess says he has found them. On the contrary, in 

 reply to an inquiiy whether he saw "any danger or liability 

 to objection in the method proposed by Mr. Harris, of carrying 

 off lightning from ships," &c., he observes, " Mr. Harris appears 

 to me to be well acquainted with the subject, and fairly to esti- 

 mate the operation of the element with which we have to con- 

 tend," &c. I find it of course somewhat painful to be obliged 

 to refer to such quotations ; but in justice to myself I think I 

 am called on to expose, by an appeal to facts, how ill-supported 

 are Dr. Riess's assertions of my want of knowledge, &c. of the 

 question I have undertaken to discuss, and the " unintelligible " 

 nature of my experiments, both to himself and " others." 



With respect to Dr. Riess's assertion, that I must be unac- 

 quainted with the use of the thermometer, being still " unaware 

 of the necessity of employing a calculation," &c., I think it may 

 be seen by reference to what I stated, that I neither asserted nor 

 denied the necessity of "calculation." I in no way meddled 

 with the very loose ground on which Dr. Riess builds his con- 

 clusion, and I took very especial care to explain my view of the 

 operation of the instrument. In the present imperfect state of 

 our knowledge of the causes of heat and electricity, and of our 

 equally imperfect apprehension of the precise way in which my 

 thermo-electrometer operates, I cannot but conclude that the 



