Ra oe 
SE ek i Sh fies Sales pete h FD Sew Bs ee Se 
MS re eae a ee et aie a 
ton, for the purpose of producing Crystals ; nt een ae 
which Experiments certain Insects constantly appeared ~ Com- 
nuvinicated ina letter dated Dec. 27, 1837, addressed to the Sec- 
retary of the London Electrical Society. Read. Jan. 20, 1838, 
From, the Treiiesctione of the Electrical Society of London. 
Magalies Birenk trust that the gentlemen who compose ‘hie 
“Electrical Society” will not imagine that bec -have so long ~ 
delayed answering their request, to furnish the Society, through 
you, as its organ, with a full account of my electrical experiments, 
in which a certain insect made its unexpected appearance, that 
such delay has been occasioned by any. desire of withholding 
what I have to state, from the Society in particular, or the public 
at large. I am delighted to find that at last, late, though not the 
less called for, a body of scientific gentlemen dive linked them- 
selves together for the sake of exploring and making public those 
- mysteries, which hitherto, under a variety of names, and ascribed 
to all-causes but the true one, have eluded the grasp of men of 
research, and served to perplex, perhaps, rather than to afford suf- 
ficient data to theorize upon. It is true that much has been done 
in the course of a few years, and that which has been done only 
affords the strongest reason for believing that vastly more remains 
to be done. It would be presumptuous in me to enumerate the 
services of a Davy, a Faraday, and many other great men at home, 
or a Volta anc an Ampere, with a host-of others abroad. ‘These 
paneer men have laid the foundations, on which their sue- 
cessors ought to endeavor to erect a building worthy of the scale 
in which it has been’ commenced. — Electricity is nolonger the 
paltry confined science which ‘it was once fancied to be, making 
its appearance only from the friction of glass or wax, employed in 
childish purposes, serving as a trick for the school-boy, or a nos- 
trum for the quack. But it is, even now, though in its infancy, 
proved to be most intimately connected with all operations in 
chemistry, with magnetism, with light and caloric ; apparently a 
‘property belonging to all matter, perhaps ranging throagh all space, 
: from sun to sun, from planet to planet, and not improbably the 
cause of every change in the animal, mineral, vegetable, 
