J44 THE FARMER AT HOME. 



have more than its natural quantity of this fluid, it is said to be posi- 

 tively electrified ; and when less than its natural share, to be nega- 

 tively electrified. When an electrified conductor is wholly surrounded 

 by non-conductors, so that the electric fluid cannot pass from it along 

 conductors to the earth, it is said to be insulated. The human body 

 is a good conductor of electricity ; but if a person stand on a cake of 

 resin, or on a stool supported by glass legs, the electric fluid cannot 

 pass from him to the earth, and if he is touched by another person 

 standing on the ground, the same sparkling appearance and noise, as 

 mentioned above, will be exhibited. Two surfaces, both positively, or 

 both negatively electrified, repel each other ; and two substances, of 

 which one is positively, and the other negatively electrified, attract 

 each other. 



The effect of electricity on vegetation has not received that atten- 

 tion which it probably deserves. That plants push forward much 

 faster where the electric currents are active is well known to the 

 scientific farmer ; but how far this new agent may be used to hasten 

 vegetation is not generally understood. Some experiments seem to 

 show the power to be very great. Thus by sowing the seeds of cresses 

 in a suitable earth, watered and of a proper temperature, and apply- 

 ing the soltaic battery, the seeds are germinated, and the plants fully 

 developed in a few days ; and very similar effects are produced on 

 other seeds. Hence, it may be inferred, that all vegetation owes 

 perhaps its very existence to currents of this fluid, and if man is able 

 to produce or control them, they may be made of essential service. 

 The effect of electricity in hastening vitality in the embryo of animals 

 is not less striking. The eggs of the common fowl require from 

 twenty to twenty-five days to produce the young, according to the 

 temperature. By exposing them to the electro-magnetic current, the 

 young are hatched in five or six days ; and some of our readers are 

 doubtless aware of the result of Mr. Cross's experiments, in which 

 insects were repeatedly produced by the passage of the current through 

 silicate of potash. 



ELEMENT. In Physiology, a term used by philosophers to 

 denote the original component parts of bodies, or those into which they 

 are ultimately resolvable. It seems to have been an opinion estab- 

 lished among philosophers in the remotest ages, that there are only 

 four simple bodies, namely, fire, air, water, and earth. To these they 

 gave the name of elements, because they believed that all substances 

 are composed of these four. This opinion, variously modified indeed, 

 was maintained by all the ancient philosophers. We now know that 

 all these supposed elements are compounds ; fire is composed of caloric 

 and light ; air of caloric, oxygen and azotic gases ; water of oxygen 

 and hydrogen ; and the earth includes ten different substances. 



ELEPHANT. The human race excepted, the elephant is the 

 most respectable of animals. In size he surpasses all other terrestrial 



