NOLLET'S EXPERIMENTS. 527 



of the eighteenth century devoted to electrical treatises. 

 People who wrote on electricity were forbidden to write 

 sermons; and people who wrote sermons could not write 

 on electricity. Dr. Priestley was the only exception; but 

 even his ponderous history is a mere brochure for the 

 author of 346 books, mainly theological. 



It is not necessary here to epitomize, however briefly, 

 the contents of the many little books which appeared in 

 Europe during the two years immediately following the 

 advent of the L,eyden jar. Some, like the anonymous 

 Venetian work, 1 which begins by recounting the gallant 

 adventures of a pair of young soldiers in the charming city 

 of the Adriatic, and ends by making them listeners to an 

 elaborate dissertation on electricity as a part of the polite 

 conversation in somebody's palace, are quaintly curious. 

 Nollet is developing more and more startling experiments 

 with what seems to be constantly augmenting ingenuity. 

 He turns to the electric light, and places glass flasks ex- 

 hausted of air directly upon the metal conductor, which he 

 connects by a chain with the globe of his electric machine. 

 Sometimes the flask bursts into glow, and luminous 

 aigrettes shoot from the metal cap and stop-cock. If he 

 brings his fingers to the exterior the flames divide as if to 

 meet them. Sometimes a single powerful stream flows 

 from the end' of the rod, and when he touches the latter 

 with his finger a spark leaps forth, and "at the same in- 

 stant the vessel is filled with so brilliant a light that all 

 objects near it are made distinctly visible/' so that he 

 adds, enthusiastically, u A more natural representation of 

 the lightning flashes which precede or accompany thunder 

 could not be found." 



The effect of electricity on vegetables and animals he 

 essays to test by direct experiment. He plants mustard 

 seeds in two receptacles, and maintains one in an electri- 

 fied state for eight days. "The electrified seeds," he says, 

 "had all sprouted at the end of that time, and had stalks 



1 Dell' elettricismo ossia delle forze elletriche. Venice, 1746. 



