GEORGE MATTHIAS BOSE. 493 



which the latest electrical manifestations had created in 

 the now thoroughly awakened Germans. 



The activity of the German investigators is not reflected 

 in the annals of the Berlin Academy, but in a host of indi- 

 vidual treatises issued so closely together in point of time 

 that it is impracticable to determine, from their often con- 

 tradictory statements, the chronological sequence in which 

 the recorded discoveries were made. It is even doubtful 

 to whom is due the credit of accomplishing the work which 

 began the new era; some contemporary writers according 

 it to Christian August Hausen, others to George Matthias 

 Bose. The achievement itself involved no new discovery; 

 but, in the light of its consequences, its history is im- 

 portant. 



Bose l was a teacher in Leipsic and master of an "exper- 

 imental college." So slow was the diffusion of scientific 

 knowledge at the time that the memoirs of the French 

 Academy, containing the account of Dufay's experiments 

 made in 1733-4, did not reach him until three years later. 

 He had already studied electricity sufficiently to appreciate 

 keenly the discoveries of the French scientist, and to be 

 eager to repeat them. No glass tube of proper size was 

 available in all L,eipsic, and Bose's straitened means pre- 

 vented his procuring one from Paris. There stood, how- 

 ever, in his. laboratory a large distilling apparatus, the 

 retort of which was of glass, and capable of holding six or 

 seven gallons. Upon the nozzle of this vessel Bose's eye 

 fell one day, and in an instant the sacrifice was made, and 

 the long-desired tube was in his hands. It is singular that 

 Dufay, with all his acumen, should not have perceived the 

 disadvantages incident to the use of the tube, which re- 

 quired constantly renewed rubbing, and worked always 

 with diminishing effects. Bose's fresher perceptions recog- 

 nized them quickly, and his mind at once recurred to the 

 rotary glass globe of Hauksbee and Newton as a much 

 more convenient apparatus for generating electricity. But 



, Tentamina Electrica. Wittenberg, 1744. 



