ypt 

 foment! 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



202 



No difference could be detected between this 

 wheat and that which now grows in the East 

 and elsewhere; and in regard to the barley, 

 I am informed by Mr. Brown, the celebrated 

 botanist, that its identity with the grain of 

 our own times can be tested by the closest 

 comparison. On examining, for example, 

 one of the seeds from Mr. Sam's Egyptian 

 collection in the British Museum, it is found 

 that " the structure of the husks, or that 

 part of the flower which is persistent, agrees 

 precisely with the barley of the present day, 

 in having one perfect flower and the filiform 

 rudiments of a second." Some naturalists 

 believe that the perfect identification of the 

 ancient Egyptian cerealia with the varieties 

 now cultivated has been carried still further 

 by sowing the seeds taken out of the cata- 

 combs, and raising plants from them; but 

 we want more evidence of this fact. Certain 

 it is, that when the experiment was recent- 

 ly made in the botanic garden at Kew, with 

 100 seeds of wheat, barley, and lentils, from 

 the Egyptian collection before mentioned of 

 the British Museum, not one of them would 

 germinate. LYELL Principles of Geology, 

 bk. iii, ch. 34, p. 587. (A., 1854.) 



984. Travelers Imposed 



Upon Evidence Not Carefully Sifted. I by 

 no means wish to express an opinion that 

 seeds cannot retain their vitality after an 

 entombment of 3,000 years; but one of my 

 botanical friends who entertained a philo- 

 sophical doubt on this subject, being desir- 

 ous of ascertaining the truth of three or 

 four alleged instances of the germination of 

 " mummy wheat," discovered, on communi- 

 cating with several Egyptian travelers, that 

 they had produced the grains in question, 

 not directly from the catacombs, but from 

 the Arabs, who are always ready to supply 

 strangers with an article now very fre- 

 quently in demand. The presence of an oc- 

 casional grain of Indian corn or maize in 

 several of the parcels of grain shown to my 

 friend as coming from the catacombs con- 

 firmed his skepticism. LYELL Principles of 

 Geology, bk. iii, ch. 34, p. 587. (A., 1854.) 



985. ELECTRICITY A FORM OF EN- 

 ERGY Electric "Fluid" and "Current" 

 Misnomers. Electricity is not a fluid, or 

 any form of material substance, but a form 

 of energy. Energy is expressed in different 

 ways, and, while as energy it is one and the 

 same, we call it by different names as heat 

 energy, chemical energy, electrical energy, 

 and so on. They will all do work, and in 

 that respect are alike. One difficulty in ex- 

 plaining electrical phenomena is the nomen- 

 clature that the science is loaded down with. 

 All the old names were adopted when elec- 

 tricity was regarded as a fluid, hence the 

 word " current." It is spoken of as " flow- 

 ing" when it does not flow any more than 

 light flows. -ELISHA GRAY Nature's Mir- 

 acles, vol. iii, ch. 5, p. 41. (F. H. & H., 

 1900.) 



986. ELECTRICITY A RECENT SCI- 

 ENCE Electricity as a well-developed sci- 

 ence is not old. Those of us who have lived 

 fifty years have seen nearly all its develop- 

 ment so far as it has been applied to useful 

 purposes, and those who have lived over 

 twenty-five years have seen the major por- 

 tion of its development. ELISHA GRAY Na- 

 ture's Miracles, vol. iii, ch. 2, p. 6. (F. H. 

 & H., 1900.) 



987. ELECTRICITY A RESULT OF 

 EVERY CHANGE Perhaps a Mode of Mo- 

 lecular Motion. More recently it has been 

 discovered that friction is by no means the 

 only source of electricity, and it seems prob- 

 able that no change, either chemical or phys- 

 ical, takes place in Nature without some 

 manifestation of this agent. It was at first 

 supposed that there were several kinds of 

 electricity, which were named thermo-elec- 

 tricity, magneto-electricity, voltaic electric- 

 ity, and animal electricity, according to the 

 nature of the process in which the electric- 

 al action was developed; but it is now uni- 

 versally conceded that all are only different 

 manifestations of the same agent, and most 

 investigators believe that electricity will in 

 time be shown to be a form of molecular mo- 

 tion analogous to that which produces the 

 phenomena of light and heat, altho it has 

 not as yet been found possible to frame a 

 comprehensive and intelligible theory based 

 upon this hypothesis. COOKE Religion and 

 Chemistry, ch. 2, p. 59. (A., 1897.) 



988. ELECTRICITY, EVOLUTION OF, 

 FROM STEAM Theory of the Thunder-cloud. 

 If the vaporization of the water were 

 shown to be the source of the electricity, 

 Professor Henry thought the phenomena 

 might be readily explained by the beautiful 

 theory of Becquerel, in regard to the produc- 

 tion of the great intensity of the electricity 

 in the thunder-cloud. According to this 

 theory, each particle of the vapor carries up 

 with it into the atmosphere the free electric- 

 ity which it receives at the moment of the 

 change of state : this being diffused through 

 the whole capacity of the air is of very 

 feeble intensity, altho of great quantity ; but 

 the condensation of the vapor in a cloud af- 

 fords a continuous conductor, and conse- 

 quently the electricity of all the particles of 

 the interior, according to the well-known 

 principles of distribution, rushes to the sur- 

 face of the cloud, and hence the great inten- 

 sity of the lightning. Agreeably with this 

 hypothesis, the insulated conductor, placed 

 in the steam, would act not only as a col- 

 lector, but also as a condenser of the free 

 but feeble electricity of the vapor. HENRY 

 Scientific Writings, p. 190. (Sm. Inst., 

 1840.) 



989. ELECTRICITY GENERATED BY 

 VOLCANIC ERUPTION Elemental Forces 

 Joined. It is well known that when high- 

 pressure steam is allowed to escape through 

 an orifice, electricity is abundantly gener- 



