276 



ELECTRICITY. 



ELIOT, THOMAS D. 



electromotive force produced is supposed to 

 depend on the electrolytic reduction of the so- 

 dium. The battery is arranged in ten com- 

 pound cells of four couples each, and is charged 

 by a small battery of five Grove cells, and, 

 after the connection has been established for a 

 few seconds, a commutator of peculiar con- 

 struction is brought into play, and excites the 

 whole forty cells to activity. It is thought 

 that a battery so constructed, which can be 

 energized at pleasure by a brief communication 

 with the small Grove, will be found of service 

 in telegraphing through lines of great resist- 

 ance. 



Faure's new battery is a modification of 

 Bunsen's, the poles consisting of carbon in 

 strong nitric acid, and amalgamated zinc in di- 

 lute sulphuric acid. The carbon pole is made 

 in the shape of a bottle, provided with a car- 

 bon or platinum stopper, and this bottle con- 

 tains the nitric acid, whose fumes, so deleteri- 

 ous in the Bunsen battery, are thus prevented 

 from escaping, only enough acid percolating 

 through the charcoal to keep up the necessary 

 electrolytic action of the elements. The bot- 

 tle, which is at once pole and porous dia- 

 phragm, is placed concentrically in the inte- 

 rior of a cylinder of amalgamated zinc. And the 

 whole is contained in an earthen-ware jar. 

 When set up for action the bottle is nearly 

 filled with the nitric acid, and the space con- 

 taining the zinc, between the bottle and the 

 outer jar, to the required height with the di- 

 lute sulphuric acid. The slight liberation of 

 gas within the bottle causes a sufficient press- 

 ure to be exerted upon the nitric acid to force 

 it gradually through the carbon. In this way 

 the exterior of the carbon pole remains im- 

 mersed in a very thin layer of nitric acid im- 

 mediately opposite to the zinc, which is in 

 course of dissolution in the dilute sulphuric 

 acid. 



Curious Effects of Lightning. On the 17th 

 of June, lightning struck a house near Ham- 

 burg, Germany, first demolishing a stack of 

 chimneys, then finding its way to the well, 

 along a zinc pipe for carrying rain-water from 

 the roof downward. The pipe alluded to, 

 previously sound, was perforated in three 

 places; at one of the holes the metal was 

 forced outward, while at the two other holes 

 the metal had been forced inward in such a 

 manner as to close the tube for the passage of 

 water, at the point where the tube reached at 

 the bottom the earthen-ware drain-pipe ; the 

 latter was smashed, the soil which covered it 

 having been scooped out ; no fire ensued by 

 the striking of the lightning, nor was fusion 

 of metal anywhere perceptible ; none of the 

 parties present in the house at the time of the 

 occurrence were at all injured. 



July 27th, lightning, at Versailles, France, 

 struck and splintered to the fineness of match- 

 wood the mast of a vessel lying in the canal ; 

 thence darted to an iron-foundery, and, after 

 travelling its full length, escaped along the 



iron stove-pipe placed in the foundery-office ; 

 thence proceeded up the steeple of St.-Gery, 

 entering there, through a broken glass-pane, 

 the room inhabited by the tower watchman. 

 In that room the lightning fell upon a galvanic 

 battery, employed to convey, by means of elec- 

 tricity, the movements of the clockwork to the 

 town-hall clock, situated at several hundred 

 metres' distance, causing such havoc and dis- 

 turbance through the connecting wires that it 

 was supposed the lightning had fallen on that 

 building. Leaving the steeple of St.-G6ry, the 

 lightning flew to the house of an artist, and, 

 after having broken some panes of glass there- 

 in, turned to the clock-tower of the college, 

 melting, without any breakage, several panes 

 of glass, and turning other panes of glass into 

 a mass of curiously-colored, non-transparent 

 substance ; and, lastly, issuing again near the 

 canal, slightly struck a soldier on duty there, 

 and disappeared in the water. 



ELIOT, THOMAS D., a Massachusetts lawyer 

 and political leader, born in Boston, March 20, 

 1808; died in New Bedford, June 12, 1870. 

 Mr. Eliot's early days were passed in Washing- 

 ton, then the home of his father. He entered 

 the Columbian College in the District of Co- 

 lumbia, and the year before his graduation 

 delivered an English oration at the first com- 

 mencement of that institution. He graduated 

 in the year 1825, and delivered the Latin salu- 

 tatory addresses on the occasion. Having 

 chosen the profession of law, he entered the 

 office of his uncle, William Cranch, Chief 

 Justice of the Circuit Court of the United 

 States for the District of Columbia, where 

 he remained until the year 1830, when he re- 

 moved to New Bedford, and finished his studies 

 with C. H. Warren. Upon his admission to 

 the bar he became a partner with Mr. War- 

 ren, and remained with him several years, but 

 was afterward associated with Judge Eobert 

 0. Pitman. Judge Warren was subsequently 

 appointed to a seat on the bench of the Court 

 of Common Pleas, and Mr. Eliot found his 

 practice widely extending, and of a pleas- 

 ant as well as lucrative nature. It left him lit- 

 tle opportunity or desire to leave it for the path 

 of political preferment. He, however, served 

 in the House of Representatives, and, after an 

 interval of several years, a term in the Senate, 

 of his State, with ability, and to the general 

 acceptance of his constituents. In the spring 

 of 1854 he was elected to fill the unexpired 

 term of the Hon. Zeno Scudder, as Represent- 

 ative of the First District, and took his seat in 

 the Thirty-third Congress in the midst of the 

 intense excitement attendant upon the intro- 

 duction of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. His pub- 

 lished speech on the subject is one of the many 

 earnest and eloquent appeals which the occa- 

 sion called forth. Mr. Eliot had always been 

 a firm Whig, attached to the liberal wing of 

 the party, but centring his hopes upon the 

 success of that political organization. The 

 whirlwind of Americanism swept that party 



