124 EULOGY ON ALEXANDER VOLTA. 



when each author neglects most scrupulously all the experiments, 

 theories, and instruments forgotten or ignored by his immediate prede- 

 cessor, it is but a duty, it seems to me, to direct the attention of begin- 

 ners to the original sources, and it is from these sources, and these alone, 

 important subjects for research can be drawn, and where they will find 

 a faithful history of discoveries, where they will learn to distinguish 

 clearly the true from the doubtful, and finally to mistrust rash hypotheses 

 adopted by compilers without discrimination and with blind confidence. 



When Saussure, profiting by the wonderful power exercised by points 

 on the electric fluid, succeeded, in 1785, by the simple addition of a rod 

 eight or nine decimeters (about a yard) in length, in increasing the sen- 

 sibility of Cavallo's electrometer, and consequently invoking a great num- 

 ber of minute experiments, the wires terminating in the elder-pith balls 

 of the Neapolitan physicist being replaced by dried straws, this small 

 apparatus might be supposed incapable of receiving any additional 

 important improvement. Volta, however, in 1787, succeeded in con- 

 siderably increasing its power, without at all changing its original 

 construction. He had recourse to the strangest of expedients to accom- 

 plish this ; he attached to the point of the metallic rod introduced by 

 Saussure either a wax candle or simply a lighted match. 



iSTo one could assuredly have foreseen such a result. Experimentalists 

 had discovered, at an early date, flame to be an excellent conductor of 

 electricity ; but would not that very fact have a tendency to divert the 

 thoughts from considering it as a powerful collector? Besides, Volta, 

 endowed with a strictly logical mind, did not thoroughly receive this 

 strange fact until he could find for it an explanation. He found that 

 the fact that a caudle attracts to the point to which it is attached three 

 or four times as much electricity as could be collected in any other 

 way, is owing to the current of air induced by the flame, and to the 

 increased communications established between the metallic point and 

 the atmospheric molecules. 



Since flame attracts the electricity of the air much better than pointed 

 metallic rods, does it not follow, said Volta, that the best means of 

 preventing storms, or rendering them less frightful, would be to light 

 enormous fires in the fields, or, still better, on very elevated places. 

 After reflecting on the grand effects of the very small flame of the 

 candle of the electrometer, is there anything unreasonable in suppos- 

 ing that a large flame might, in a few moments, rob immense volumes 

 of air and vapor of all their electricity ? 



Volta was anxious to submit this idea to the proof of direct experi- 

 ment; but so far his wishes have been unsatisfied. Perhaps some 

 encouraging ideas might be obtained with regard to this by comparing 

 the meteorological observations of the counties in England, where the 

 flames of so many high chimneys and factories convert night into day 

 with those of the surrounding agricultural districts. 



The fiery lightning-rods tempted Volta to throw aside the severe 



