CHAPTER n. 



HISTORY OF ELECTRICAL SCIENCE. 



Electricity as a well-developed science is 

 not old. Those of us who have lived fifty 

 years have seen nearly all its development so 

 far as it has been applied to useful purposes, 

 and those who have lived over twenty-five 

 years have seen the major portion of its de- 

 velopment. 



Thales of Miletus, COO B.C., discovered, or 

 at least described, the properties of amber 

 when rubbed, showing that it had the power to 

 attract and repel light substances, such as 

 straws, dry leaves, etc. And from the Greek 

 word for amber elektron came the name 

 electricity, denoting this peculiar property. 

 Theophrastus and Pliny made the same obser- 

 vations; the former about 321 B.C., and the 

 latter about 70 A.D. It is also said that the 

 ancients had observed the effects of animal 

 electricity, such as that of the fish called the 

 torpedo. Pliny and Aristotle both speak of its 

 power to paralyze the feet of men and animals, 

 and to first benumb the fish which it then 

 preyed UP^- It is also recorded that a freed- 

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