ELECTRICITY. 



rr*5*i" lffatunflr *re imitated in the artificial production of 

 ItMriiMj. electricity. 



Opinion of 



So let. 



city, 



The Abbe Nollet spoke still more decidedly res|xct- 

 ing the analogy of electricity with lightning ; and his 

 opinion was probably formed from the follow ing Miigu- 

 lar tact, which is related by Saussure : In the summer 

 of 1733, when M. Paccard, the secretary of the parish of 

 ( li.imoimi, was excavating the foundation of a chalet, 

 which he wished to erect in the meadow of Plianpra, 

 upon Mount Breven, a violent thunder storm came on, 

 and compelled him to take refuge under a neighbouring 

 rock. In the place where he hail been working he had 

 Kit a large iron lever standing vertically in the ground, 

 and he was astonished to observe the thunder and light- 

 ning, as he called it, fall several times upon the head of 

 the lever. On the following winter M. Paccard went 

 to Paris, and attended a course of lectures given by 

 the Abbe Nollet; and as soon as he perceived the 

 sparks from an electrifying machine, he was so struck 

 with their resemblance to the fire which had fallen 

 upon his lever, that he immediately communicated the 

 observation to the Abbe Nollet In the possession of 

 such information, it is unaccountable how this learned 

 philosopher should have neglected to try the experi- 

 ments which, after the lapse of eighteen years, were 

 made by his countryman Dalibard. 



Dr Franklin, some time afterwards, drew up a list of 

 the points of resemblance between electricity and light- 

 ning. | Still, however, these conjectures had no solid 

 foundation ; and it is a singular fact, that no experi- 

 ment had been made to verify a theory of such vast 

 importance. 



fint The celebrated naturalist Buffon, seems to have been 

 attempts to the first person who made any attempt to draw down 

 electricity" h'g ntn ' n g from the heavens. Upon the tower of Mont- 

 bar, he raised an insulated bar of iron, which he connect- 

 ed with a conductor and with bells, to give him notice 

 at a distance of the presence of the electric fluid, and 

 he waited with anxiety for the first storm of thunder. 



At the recommendation of Buffon, M. Dalibard con- 

 menu of M. structed a similar apparatus at Marly la Ville, about 

 Dalibard. six leagues from Paris. It consisted of an iron rod 40 

 feet long and about an inch in diameter, and pointed at 

 its upper extremity. The rod was bent at its lower 

 end into two acute angles, and was placed in a gar- 

 den upon three large poles, and insulated by means of 

 silk strings, and a stool with glass feet M. Dalibard, 

 during his absence, entrusted the charge of his appara- 

 tus to a joiner named Coiffier, who had served 1* years 

 in the dragoons, and who was supposed to have sufficient 

 courage for such an undertaking. Dalibard had given 

 him every requisite instruction, and had desired him, in 

 the event of a thunder storm, to call in some of his 

 neighbours, but particularly M. Kaulet, the curate of the 

 parish. In Dalibard's absence, the thunder storm made 

 its appearance on Wednesday the 10th of May 1752, 

 and between two and three o'clock in the afternoon, af- 

 ter a pretty loud clap of thunder, Coiffier ran to the ap- 

 paratus, and presenting to it the end of an iron wire, in- 

 sulated by a glass handle, he perceived a small spark 

 attended with a crackling noise. He then drew a se- 

 cond spark, more brilliant than the first, and attended 

 with a louder noise, and instantly called his neigh- 

 bours as he was desired. The curate ran towards the 

 apparatus with great impetuosity, and his parishioners 

 imagined, from his great hurry, that Coi flier had been 



from the 

 clouds. 



Kxperi- 



killed by the thunder. The alarm spread through the 

 \illage, and in spite of the hail which followed the thun- 

 der, all the inhabitants (lucked alter their pastor. A-> 

 soon us the curate anivcd at tic apparatus, he pie- 

 sentcd the insulated brass wire at the distance of a- 

 bout an inch and a half, ;.i.,i received a -trong spark, 

 which he describes us a small column of bluish (ire. 

 which smelt of sulphur, and which -truck the end of 

 the brass wire with great force. He repeated the ex- 

 periment more than six times in the space of about four 

 minutes, before several pcr-un-. and every experiment. 

 to use his own words, " continued during the space of 

 a paler and an arc." The sparks gradually diminished, 

 and upon bringing the wire nearer the rod, he was able 

 to draw only a few sparks, which soon disap]n 

 As soon as the cloud had passed, the curate dispatched 

 Coiffier with a letter to Dalibard, containing the pre- 

 ceding statement. In the course of the experiments, 

 M. Raulet had somehow or other received a stroke ujxm 

 the arm, either from the rod or from the brass wire. 

 Upon uncovering it, he perceived a mark, as if it had 

 been made by a blow from the wire upon his naked skin. 



A few days after the preceding experiment had been 

 made, M. Delors, Demonstrator of Physics in Paris, who 

 lived in one of the most elevated cjuarters of the town, 

 had raised a bar of iron 90 f ct high, insulated upon a 

 cake of rosin two feet square and three inches thick. 

 On the 18th of May, between four and five o'clock in 

 the afternoon, a stormy cloud passed over the appara- 

 tus, and M. Delors received several sparks from his rod, 

 which resembled, in every respect, those which issued 

 from ordinary electrifying machines. The strongest 

 sparks were drawn at the distance of nine lines, whilst 

 a shower of rain, mixed with a little hail, fell from the 

 cloud, without either thunder or lightning. The con- 

 ductor even gave sparks, when the cloud was over 

 Yincennes, at least two leagues from the place of ob- 

 servation. 



Buffon, though he had the merit of erecting the first 

 thunder rod, was unluckily the last to observe any of 

 its electrical phenomena. On the IQth of May, how- 

 ever, a stormy cloud at length passed over Montbar, and 

 Buffon obtained from his rod several electrical sparks. 



All these experiments were made in France, be- 

 fore Dr Franklin had raised his electrical kite in Ame- 

 rica ; but without any knowledge of what had been 

 done by the French philosophers, he succeeded in esta- 

 blishing the identity of lightning and electricity in the 

 month of June 1752, and posterity have unanimously 

 agreed in associating his name with that brilliant dis- 

 covery. In our History of Electricity, we have already 

 given a full account of the method by which he suc- 

 ceeded in bringing lightning from the clouds, and of 

 the fatal accident which happened to Professor Richman 

 of St Petersburg, in repeating that grand experiment. 



No sooner was this great discovery published, than 

 numerous attempts were made, in different parts of 

 Europe, to obtain the same re.-U. The Abbe Mazeas, 

 Le Monnier, Romas, Cassini, Bertier, Canton, Bevis, 

 Wilson, Beccaria, Muschenbroek, Kinnersley, Prince 

 Gallitzin, Van Swinden, Bertholon, De la Garde, Ver- 

 rat, Marin, Zanotti, Bose, Cordon, and other philoso- 

 phers, succeeded in bringing down the electric fluid 

 from the clouds, and have established, on the firmest ba- 

 sis, the identity of lightning and electricity. 



The most successful, as well as the most meritorious 



Expert- 

 mtnu of M. 

 Delors. 



Experi- 

 ment] of 

 Buft'on. 



Experi- 

 ment* of 

 Franklin 

 and llich- 

 man. 



Repented 

 evciy part 

 of Europe. 



See Saussure, t'ayagti Jan* la Alaa, 8vo edit. 1786, veL iii p. 79. 

 t SM the Hitiory uf Klccuicity, p. 417. 



3 



