Januaby 2, 1399. 



KNOWLEDGE. 



21 



lies deep down." And the same assertion has been made 

 again and again, in varying terms. Yet we often meet 

 the truth quite unexpectedly, and it is not always pleasant. 

 Other truths, again, had been staring the world (including 

 the seekers after them) in the face for years before they 

 were recognized. Ancient India has a tradition to the 

 effect that it was children who first found that the friction 

 of certain substances rendered them capable of attracting 

 fragments of straw, feathers, etc. We are bound to admit 

 that here was a truth over which men might have stumbled. 



It appears, then, that in the early stages of scientific 

 discovery, first one or two facts are accidentally noted, 

 these may, in logical sequence, give rise to the discovery 

 or recognition of others, till ultimately a spirit of enquiry 

 has its birth, though perhaps only in the minds of one or 

 two. It is given to these pioneers to leaven the lump, and 

 though there may be times when neglect and error will 

 almost put out the first glimmerings, yet that neglect and 

 those errors will work towards the ultimate discovery of 

 truth. Consider the evolution of the telegraph. We have 

 there a series of events which may well serve as a type of 

 the struggles of a science. First, the alleged dream, which 

 may have had its existence only from political, religious, 

 or irreligious necessity. The immediate result was the 

 notion of communication at a distance, and it was distri- 

 buted broadcast. The next result was by no means so 

 happy, for either a great number of people accepted with 

 blind credulity a statement which was absurd, or deliberate 

 untruths were told for purposes of self aggrandisement. 



Yet, throughout that period, there were one or two 

 honest men whose calm spirit of research saved them from 

 being carried down with the stream. And these workers 

 in time actually stemmed the torrent. 



In the year 1753 the Scots' ilagaUne published an 

 article (signed " C. M.") in which a perfectly practical 

 scheme was set forth. Twenty-six wires and twenty-six 

 pith balls suspended close to their ends, awl a circumscribed 

 iilphabet. Can nothing good come from evil "? 



It is interesting to note, that for some two thousand 

 years before l>r. Gilbert's time (1540 — 1603), we find only 

 a disjointed series of electrical facts mentioned, usually, 

 too, as matters of common knowledge. There was ap- 

 parently no real effort made to arrive at well-founded con- 

 clusions from those facts. Boyle and Von Guericke brought 

 us up to the close of the seventeenth century almost. The 

 latter appears to have been the first to arrange a mechanical 

 device for the generation of electricity, for he worked with 

 a sulphur ball, which had actually been cast in glass that 

 he deliberately broke ! Mounting this ball on a spindle he 

 rotated it, and, holding the hand against it, excited it. It 

 was reserved for Newton to realize that the original glass 

 globe would have answered the purpose better. 



But the names of active workers come now so thick and- 

 so fast that it is only possible to make a selection. 



Stephen Gray claims our attention. His work was 

 vigorous and of real use. He published, in 1720, a report 

 upon the results obtained by the friction of various sub- 

 stances. In 172i) he enunciated the first ideas of con- 

 ductivity, and succeeded in conveying electrical energy a 

 distance of eight hundred and eighty- six feet through a 

 packthread suspended on silk supports. How many modern 

 electricians, working with Gray's appliances, would care 

 to undertake this ? It was Gray, too, who showed that 

 fluids would conduct. Finally, he wrote, " I hope that 

 there may be found out a way to collect a greater quantity 

 of electric fire, and consequently to increase the force of 

 that power, which, by several of these experiments, si licet 

 marpiis comiionerc parrn, seems to be of the same nature 

 with thunder and lightning. " 



Next, the prime conductor was added to the electrical 

 machine. It is not without interest to note that this was 

 at first "supported by a man, standing upon cakes of 

 resin" ! 



Then Prof. Winkler added the cushion, about 1744. 

 Gordon, of Erfurt, having himself improved the apparatus, 

 arranged some reaUy beautiful experiments, as, for example, 

 the ignition of fluids by a jet of electrified water. 



It was with the birth of the Leyden jar, 1745, that Gray's 

 hope was to be realized. One hardly knows to whom it 

 should be attributed. 



Sir WiUiam Watson achieved one of the first practical 

 results, for, by mixing camphor with gunpowder, he suc- 

 ceeded in discharging a musket electrically. Then, having 

 coated the Leyden jar on both sides, he worked, under the 

 auspices of the Royal Society, upon the velocity of elec- 

 trical discharge. The conclusion then arrived at was 

 perfectly natural, the report stating that the discharge 

 through twelve thousand two hundred and seventy-six feet 

 of wire was instantaneous. 



Benjamin Franklin next claims our attention. First 

 he told the world that the electricity obtained by friction 

 was not created but collected. This seems to have done 

 more to raise electricity to the level of an exact science 

 than anything we have yet considered. So far we have 

 found that experiment predominated over deduction to a 

 very great extent ; but now a change came. Franklin, 

 appreciating the work of Gray, constructed his kite, and 

 brought a part of the lightning to earth, so showing that 

 " it was of the same nature with the electric fire." 



The first electrician who became a martyr to the pursuit 

 of truth. Prof. Reichman, of St. Petersburg, was working 

 with what would now be called a lightning conductor, on 

 August 6th, 1753, and died from the very success of his 

 own experiment. 



The atmosphere of thought, throughout the entire con- 

 tinent, was charged with electricity now. Beccaria, the 

 Italian, did work upon atmospheric electricity which should 

 be of great interest to meteorologists now. 



But the march of time carries us on. Galvani was 

 busy, and Volta's pile was in use with the dawn of the 

 present century. Then Sir Humphry Davy decomposed 

 " the solid earth." 



Here was the heterogeneous collection of fact laid ready 

 to the brain and the hand of the first really mathematical 

 electrician. Coulomb came. The torsion balance had an 

 existence. He adopted the hypothesis of two fluids, and 

 investigated the lairs of distribution and density. In short, 

 he treated electrical quantities as being subject to accurate 

 mensuration. Laplace, Levoisier, and Volta did work at 

 about this time which appears to have been neglected. 

 They entered upon investigations relative to the connection 

 between electricity and evaporation. 



Poisson placed electrical phenomena under the dominion 

 of analytical reasoning, so that at his hands the study 

 increased its right to be looked upon as an exact science. 

 Oersted and Ampere followed, so that electro- dynamics 

 became almost a separate study. Truly the infant was in 

 no want of men who could and who would fulfil their duty 

 as sponsors. 



The story of Michael Faraday's induction coil is a grand 

 lesson to modern workers. Also we have Joule's splendid 

 error, which showed in after years the accuracy of his work 

 and the inaccuracy of the ohm, according to the standards 

 which prevailed then. Wilhelm Webber, Kirchoff, and 

 Helmholtz now seem to head the crowd which comes 

 thronging round us, and they introduce our contemporaries ; 

 but we can make no further mention of them here, for it 

 seems we have clearly worked our proposition to a proof, 



