12 "Matured Miracles. 



idea of erecting lightning-rods to protect 

 buildings, which are used to this day. 



The news spread all over Europe, not 

 through the medium of electricity, however, 

 but as soon as sailing vessels and stage- 

 coaches could carry it. Many philosophers 

 repeated the experiments and at least one man 

 sacrificed his life through his interest in the 

 new discovery. In 1753 Professor Richman 

 of St. Petersburg erected on his house a metal 

 rod which terminated in a Leyden jar in one 

 of the rooms. On the 31st of May he was at- 

 tending a meeting of the Academy of 

 Sciences. He heard a roll of thunder and 

 hurried home to watch his apparatus. He 

 and one of the assistants were watching the 

 apparatus when a stroke of lightning came 

 down the rod and leaped to the professor's 

 head. He was standing too near it and was 

 instantly killed. 



Passing over many names of men who fol- 

 lowed in the wake of Franklin we come to the 

 next era-making discovery, namely, that of 

 galvanic electricity. In the year 1790 an in- 

 cident occurred in the household of one Luigi 

 Galvani, an Italian physician and anatomist, 

 that led to a new and important branch of 

 electrical science. Galvani's wife was prepar- 

 ing some frogs for soup, and having skinned 

 them placed them on a table near a newly 

 Charged electric machine. A scalpel was on 



