14 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1750. 



apotheosis or beatification. The making this experiment, in the manner men- 

 tioned by this gentleman in his writings, has been attained to by none. He 

 says, if in electrizing you employ large globes, and place a man on a large cake 

 of pitch, by little and little a lambent flame arises from the pitch, and spreads 

 itself around his feet ; from hence by degrees it is propagated to his knees, his 

 body, and at last to his head : that then, by continuing the electrization, the 

 man's head is surrounded by a glory, such a one in some measure, as is repre- 

 sented by painters in their ornamenting the heads of saints : that in this state if 

 the electrized man is touched by one that is not, the pain felt by both is very se- 

 vere, reaches from the finger to the shoulder, and remains a long time. Pro- 

 fessor Bose, in another part of his writings, says that the beatification indeed 

 does not always succeed with him ; that sometimes, when other circumstances 

 have been very favourable, a man will be beatified by 1 sphere in 2 minutes ; at 

 other times, 2 or 3 globes will not do it under 6 or 8 minutes ; and even at 

 sometimes after 20 minutes, when 5 or 6 globes were made use of, no light has 

 been visible : that under the same circumstances, when one person was capable 

 of being beatified, another was not. This is a short account of Professor Bose's 

 beatification, given in his writings, in which nothing of what he says essential to 

 the operation is omitted. 



This experiment, which was not only a desirable thing to be seen, but as it 

 seemed to communicate to non-electric bodies a greater quantity of electricity 

 than any other did, that of Leyden excepted, Mr. W. was very desirous of re- 

 peating : but though he omitted no trouble, and varied not the least circum- 

 stance, that could any ways conduce to it, he was disappointed. He tried the 

 combined force of many globes, of different machines, in the best weather, and 

 with different persons, but no radiation in the manner before mentioned. 

 When he underwent this operation himself, supported by solid electrics per se of 

 more than 3 feet high, and as much distant from the sides of the room as pos- 

 sible, to prevent the escaping of the electric matter, he found in himself, as se- 

 veral others did, a tingling on the skin in his head, and in many parts of his 

 body such a sensation as would be felt from a vast number of insects crawling 

 on our bodies at the same time ; but he constantly observed this sensation to be 

 greatest in those parts of his body which were nearest any non-electric ; but still 

 no light on the head, though to make the eye more ready to observe it, this ex- 

 periment was made in the dark for some continuance. The sensation of the 

 snaps in this state were very acute. If the hand of a bystander was brought 

 near the back of the hand of the person electrized, the hairs on it sent forth a 

 great number of luminous points ; and if a bunch of fine lace wire was placed on 

 his head, you saw a great deal more of the same appearance ; but this was al- 

 ways most brilliant in those parts nearest the non-electric, and still more, when 



