

BOSK'S EXPERIMENTS. 495 



advances to the assumption that solidity, fluidity, expan- 

 sibility, electric and magnetic forces, density, light, sound, 

 heat, etc., have all a common origin in ether or electric 

 matter motion. The drawing of fire from the person 

 shows the presence of this same matter, he maintains, in 

 the blood ; and hence it may be the seat of the soul, or at 

 least exercise control of the sensory faculties. Hausen 

 died in 1743, leaving his conceptions far from developed 

 and his experimental researches unfinished. 



Bose, on the other hand, was no theorist. His temper- 

 ament unfitted him for abstract speculation, and he ex- 

 pressly avoids committing himself to any electrical theory, 

 preferring merely to formulate questions for others to 

 answer. But he was a genius. No one knew better the 

 art of playing to the gallery; in fact, in the great electrical 

 drama he created the part of the "modern wizard," and it 

 is doubtful whether any one since has ever excelled him in 

 it. He set jets of fire streaming from electrified objects, 

 and exhibited them to the people who flocked to his labor- 

 atory. He invited guests to an elegant supper-table loaded 

 with silver and glass and flowers and viands of every de- 

 scription, and, as they were about to regale themselves, 

 caused them to stand transfixed with wonder at the sight 

 of flames breaking forth from the dishes and the food and 

 every object on the board. The table was insulated on 

 pitch cakes, and received the discharge from the huge 

 glass retort which was revolved in another room. He in- 

 troduced his ardent pupils to a young woman of transcend- 

 ent attractions, and as they advanced to press her fair 

 hand, a spark shot from it accompanied by a shock which 

 made them reel. Others, who had the boldness to accept 

 his challenge to imprint a chaste salute upon the damsel's 

 lips, received therefrom a discharge which Bose says 

 "broke their teeth;" but Bose here either exaggerates 

 more than usual, or else neglects to explain how the young 

 lady bore her share of the injury. 



Meanwhile he had become professor of physics at Wit- 



