S9S Additional Notes, 



tapable of atti-actin^ other pieces of iron or steely and are tlins 

 cognisable by experiments. 



4. It seems probable that it is not the magnetic ether itself 

 which attracts or repels particles of iron j but that an attractive 

 and repulsive ether attends the magnetic ethers, as in the case of 

 the electric. 



5. "While the two electric ethers, v/hen separated by nature or 

 art, combine, by chemical affinity, with explosion, emit light and 

 heat, and leave a residuum ,• the two magnetic ethers, after being; 

 separated in like manner, combine by chemical affinity, but 

 without explosion, and produce, by their union, a neutralised 

 fiuid. 



Note (M), p. 43. — This great practical philosopher was bom, 

 about the year 1/53, at Woburn, a small town in Massachusetts,- 

 ten miles north of Boston. His parents were in humble life, and 

 his advantages, with resj>ect to education, were small. But he 

 was early distinguished as a lad of spirit and enterprise, and 

 discovered a fondness for knoN^ledge. After spending some time 

 Jn a retail store in Boston, where he was more fond of amusing 

 himself with a violin than of attending on customers, and preferred 

 making experiments with an electrical machine to either, he re- 

 turned to Woburn : here, however, he did not remain long. Ir> 

 1772 he attended professor Winthrop's lectures on experimental 

 philosophy, in Harvard college. He was not a matriculated stu- 

 dent; but, being regarded as an ingenious and promising young 

 man, was permitted to attend this part of tlie usual course of in- 

 fitmction, for which he manifested a particular predilection. 



In 1772 or 177^) young Thompson went to New Hampshire, 

 and settled in a town called Rumford, at that time under the juris- 

 diction of Massachusetts, but afterwards, by a new territorial ar- 

 rangement, assigned to New Hampshire, and riow called Concord. 

 Here he married a widow, of the name of Rolfe, with whom he 

 received a large fortune. In 1775 he went to England; and, 

 soon after his arrival, was introduced to lord George Germaine, then 

 secretary of state, to whom he so far recommended himself as ta 

 be appointed one of the first clerks in his office. When his lord- 

 ship went put of office, he still exerted his influence in favour of 

 Mr. I'hcjmpson, and obtained for hihi a colonel's commission. 

 V. !th this commission, towards the close of the American war, he 

 came to New York, with the view of raising a regiment of loya- 

 lists 3 but the regiment was never completed 3 he was, however^ 



