PHYSICS, EIGHTEENTH CENT. ELECTRICITY. 325 



one hand, and with the other I was trying to draw sparks from the gun- 

 barrel, when suddenly the hand holding the bottle was struck with so 

 much violence that my frame was shaken as if by a lightning-stroke. 

 I thought that all was over with me, for my arm and my whole body 

 were affected in a dreadful way, which I cannot describe. The glass 

 vessel is not generally broken in this experiment, nor is the hand 

 moved ; but it is singular that the experiment succeeds only when the 

 vessel is made of Bohemian glass : the shape and thickness are imma- 

 terial. The bottle which made me think I was killed was of thin 

 white glass, and five inches in diameter. The person who tries the 

 experiment may simply stand on the floor, but the glass vessel must 

 be held by the same person who with the other hand receives the 

 spark." Musschenbroeck says also that he would not go through such 

 an experience again for the crown of France. 



There were two persons who co-operated with Musschenbroeck in 

 these experiments. To CUNEUS, one of these, the honour of being the 

 actual first discoverer of the Leyden jar is sometimes ascribed. The 

 other, named ALLAMAN, says that the first time he experienced the 

 shock he was so stupefied as to be unable to breathe for some minutes. 

 But perhaps the alarming element in the accounts of the early experi- 

 menters reaches its height in the description given by Winckler, a 

 professor at Leipzig. He says that his whole body was convulsed, 

 that his head felt as heavy as if it had a stone inside, and that thinking 

 he was going to be seized with a burning fever, he was obliged to have 

 recourse to cooling medicines. The professor's wife was another victim 

 to the power of imagination, for we are told that after she had expe- 

 rienced the shock, she remained for a week scarcely able to move. 

 The Abbe' Nollet, attempting the experiment at Paris with a flask, not 

 of Bohemian but of French glass, and hardly expecting to succeed 

 after Musschenbroeck's statement about the kind of glass required, he 

 received a tolerably smart shock, on which he was obliged to let go 

 the glass vessel he was holding. The error of Musschenbroeck in sup- 

 posing that a certain kind of glass was necessary has been since ex- 

 plained by the mere accident of his Bohemian glass vessel having been 

 dry in the upper part, whereas the others were not so. 



After the novelty of the experiment had passed, and familiarity had 

 deprived it of all imaginary terrors, persons- of every age, sex, and rank 

 were desirous of experiencing the new sensation. The electric shock 

 became, in fact, a fashionable amusement, and for several years was, 

 to use a colloquialism, all the rage. 



Among the men of science of the eighteenth century were many 

 whose careers also as statesmen, ecclesiastics, military or civil officials, 

 and men of ordinary business, were honourable and distinguished. 

 The fact of so many men achieving success at once in the ordinary 

 affairs of the world and in science, appears less extraordinary if the 

 methods of thought required for science be after all nothing more, 



