216 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 193 5 



Benjamin in his histoiy, The Intellectual Rise in Electricity,* It is 

 customary to credit Thales (600 B. C.) with the first observation of 

 the attractive power of rubbed amber, but Benjamin shows that am- 

 ber was widely loiown among the ancients for centuries before 

 Thales. Beads of amber have been found in the ancient lake dwell- 

 ings of Europe, in the royal tombs at Mycenae (2000 B. C), and 

 throughout northern Italy. The identity in chemical composition of 

 these relics with the amber of the Baltic Sea coast is significant of 

 the esteem in which this substance was held and of the distance over 

 which it was thought worth while to bring it. The golden glow of 

 the polished beads suggested the beaming sun, called by Homer 

 riXeKTcap, which doubtless gave rise to the Greek name for amber, 

 ^XeKTpov. 



It is incredible, as Benjamin points out, that this widespread ac- 

 quaintance of the ancients with amber should have existed so long 

 without its electrical property being often noticed. It is probable that 

 Thales but shared the knowledge of his time in this respect, for his 

 acquaintance with the things of Nature in general was such as to 

 enable him to make the first recorded prediction of an eclipse of the 

 sun. Thales left no writings of his own, and all we know of him we 

 have learned from those who lived several centuries later. 



It appears from these authorities that the ancients regarded elec- 

 tricity as a soul or spirit resident in an otherwise lifeless substance. 

 This was in harmony with the prevailing thought of the times, which 

 regarded all motion as evidence of life. The air was inanimate, but 

 the wind was the breath of Aeolus ; the waves of the sea were excited 

 by the wrathful strokes of Neptune's trident; the lightning was the 

 thunderbolt of Zeus. This animistic explanation of the nature of 

 electricity was simple and definite enough to be understood by any- 

 one and lasted for several millenniums — in fact until the revival of 

 learning and the growth of experimental science supplied material 

 upon which to base a rival theory. 



We are helped to realize this animistic point of view when we read 

 in a translator's footnote to Gilbert's book on the magnet ^ that a 

 certain ancient phj^sician recommended the administration of doses 

 of powdered lodestone in cases of estrangement between husbands 

 and wives. Given the premises of the time, such a conclusion was 

 perfectly logical. It was obvious that the patients exhibited a defi- 

 ciency of a certain spiritual element which was found in the lode- 

 stone, and the administration of that medicine followed as naturally 

 as a modern prescription of cod-liver oil because of its vitamin 

 content. 



* Lontrmans, Green & Co., London, 1895. 



' Translation by P. Fleury Mottelay, p. 56, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1893. 



