Clifton College Scientific Society. 77 



Mr. Glaisher and others have observed the same pecu- 

 liarities. 



Some curious observations have been made on the effect of 

 the absence of electricity in the air. Magnetic intensity 

 diminishes, and the electric telegraph has often refused to 

 act. M. Andraud, referring to a powerful electric machine, 

 capable at ordinary times of giving out sparks in profusion, 

 in a letter to the President of the Academy of Sciences of 

 Prance says, ' Prom the time the epidemic became general, 

 I was no longer able on any single occasion to produce a 

 corresponding effect. During the months of April and May 



sparks could only be procured after violent action 



These fluctuations were then obsei'ved to coincide most 

 exactly with the fluctuations of the cholera ! Nevertheless, 

 I was afraid lest the irregularities of the electric machine 

 should have been occasioned by the hygrometric state of the 

 atmosphere. I waited with impatience the arrival of fine 

 weather, to enable me to continue my observations ; but far 

 from the previous indications of the machine showing any 

 signs of diminution, they only became stronger ; for although 

 with the improved weather an augmentation of electricity 

 might have been expected in a few days, the signs of its 

 presence ceased altogether. On the 4th, 5th, and 6th of 

 June it was only possible to obtain a slight crepitation, and 

 on the 7th the machine became dumb. This singular decrease 

 in the electric element fatally accorded with a consentaneous 

 increase of the cholera. On the 8th feeble sparks reappeared 

 and increased in number and intensity. In the course of the 

 day a thunderstorm announced to plague-stricken Paris that 

 electricity had once more entered in its dominion. On the 9tli, 

 at the slightest touch the machine gave forth sparks in 

 abundance. Meantime the cholera was rapidly subsiding.' ' 



In 1865 an exceptional freedom from cholera, although 

 ozone was absent, was observed at Lyons, Birmingham, Berlin, 

 and other towns possessing metal manufactories. 



Cholera is, generally, rapidly followed by influenza. Dr. 

 Moffatt was the first to notice that ' the prevalence of in- 

 fluenza and the spread of catarrhal affections are invariably 

 connected with an excess of ozone in the atmosphere.' 



In the air of large towns and any enclosed spaces, where 

 animals are contaminating the air with their breath, and the 

 products of combustion from illumination, and other causes, 

 set free into ill-ventilated apartments, ozone is entirely 

 absent or deficient in quantity, and these are the places of 



' Chemistry of Creation. 



