TRANSACTIONS 



ACADEMY OF SCIENCE OF ST. LOUIS. 



ATMOSPHERIC ELECTRICITY, 



BT 



A. WISLIZENUS, M. D. 



Since Benjamin Franklin, by his celebrated kite-experi- 

 ment, in June, 1752, proved the identity of lightning with 

 the electricity developed by the electrical machine, natural 

 philosophers of all nations have turned their attention to 

 these interesting researches, and experimenting sometimes 

 with stationary, sometimes with movable apparatus, they 

 have acquired a good deal of information on the subject of 

 atmospheric electricity. Dalibard, Le Monnier, Canton, 

 Read, Richmann, de Romas, Charles, Cavallo, Nollet, Arch- 

 ardj de Saussure and Volta, Becquerel and Breschet, Pfaff, 

 Gay Lussac, Matteuci, Schubler, Calladon, de Luc and others, 

 have labored successively in this new field of discovery and 

 enriched science with many new facts and new methods of 

 observation. These experiments were not always conducted 

 without danger. Thus, Richmann, of Petersburg, from 

 want of proper precaution, Avas killed by lightning during 

 one of his observations ; while, on the other hand, de Romas 

 of Nersfi, received and directed, uninjured, during a thunder 

 storm, flashes of fire from nine to ten feet long and an inch 

 in diameter. The patient and zealous researches of such 

 men have proved conclusively the existence of a constant 

 flow of electricity through our atmosphere, increasing with 

 its height and being generally of a positive nature, and 

 changed only exceptionally, (for instance, daring thunder- 

 storms,) into negative electricity. But while their various 

 apparatus for attracting atmospheric electricity were very 

 ino-enious, their instruments for determining and measuring 



