8 Eloge of' Alexander Volta. 



ments, if I may be allowed to compare great things with small, 

 appears to be of the same nature as thunder and lightning." 



Many have seen nothing in these passages but mere compa- 

 risons. They do not believe that in likening the effects of elec- 

 tricity to those of thunder, Wall and Grey intended to infer an 

 identity of causes. This doubt, however, cannot be entertained 

 with regard to the views inserted by NoUet, in 1746, in his 

 lessons on experimental philosophy. Here a stormy cloud, above 

 terrestrial objects, is regarded by the author as nothing else 

 than an electrified body, placed in presence of bodies which 

 are not so. Thunder in the hands of Nature, is electricity in 

 the hands of philosophers. Many resemblances of actions are 

 noted ; nothing in short is wanting to this ingenious theory but 

 the sanction of direct experiment. 



The first views of Franklin on the analogy between electricity 

 and lightning were, like those of Nollet, mere conjectures. All 

 the difference between them consisted in a plan of experiment, 

 of which Nollet had not spoken, and which promised definite ar- 

 guments for or against the hypothesis. In this experiment the 

 trial is to be made during a storm, to determine whether a me- 

 tallic rod, insulated and terminating in a point, does not give 

 sparks analogous to those which arise from the conductor of an 

 ordinary electrical machine. 



Without attempting to detract from the fame of Franklin, I 

 must remark that the proposed experiment was almost unneces- 

 sary. It was witnessed during the African war by the fifth Ro- 

 man legion, when, according to Caesar's account, the iron of the 

 javelins appeared to be on fire at the close of a storm. Nu- 

 merous navigators have likewise seen it in the phenomenon 

 named Castor and Pollux., either on the metallic points of their 

 masts and yards, or on other projecting parts of their ships. 

 Finally, in certain countries, in Frioul for instance, at the Cas- 

 tle of Duino, the sentinel did exactly what Franklin wished, 

 when, in order to determine when it was necessary to ring a 

 bell to warn the country people of the approach of a storm, 

 he went to examine with his halbert if the iron of a pike placed 

 vertically on the rampart, produced sparks. It is to our coun- 

 tryman Dalibard, however, that science is indebted for direct 

 experiment on the subject, by which he dispelled every remain 



