A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



induction, were necessary before the practical motor 

 became possible. 



The sober Gordon had a taste for the spectacular 

 almost equal to that of Bose. It was he who ignited 

 a bowl of alcohol by turning a stream of electrified 

 water upon it, thus presenting the seeming paradox 

 of fire produced by a stream of water. Gordon also 

 demonstrated the power of the electrical discharge by 

 killing small birds and animals at a distance of two 

 hundred ells, the electricity being conveyed that dis- 

 tance through small wires. 



THE LEYDEN JAR DISCOVERED 



As yet no one had discovered that electricity could 

 be stored, or generated in any way other than by some 

 friction device. But very soon two experimenters, 

 Dean von Kleist, of Camin, Pomerania, and Pieter 

 van Musschenbroek, the famous teacher of Leyden, ap- 

 parently independently, made the discovery of what 

 has been known ever since as the Leyden jar. And 

 although Musschenbroek is sometimes credited with 

 being the discoverer, there can be no doubt that Von 

 Kleist' s discovery antedated his by a few months at 

 least. 



Von Kleist found that by a device made of a narrow- 

 necked bottle containing alcohol or mercury, into 

 which an iron nail was inserted, he was able to retain 

 the charge of electricity, after electrifying this appa- 

 ratus with the frictional machine. He made also a 

 similar device, more closely resembling the modern 

 Leyden jar, from a thermometer tube partly filled with 

 water and a wire tipped with a ball of lead. With 



280 



