Things not generally Known. 



and all the other electrical experiments be performed which are usually 

 done by the help of a rubbed-glass globe or tube ; and thus the same- 

 ness of the electric matter with that of lightning is completely demon- 

 strated." Philosophical Transactions. 



Of all this great man's (Franklin's) scientific excellencies, 

 the most remarkable is the smallness, the simplicity, the ap- 

 parent inadequacy of the means which he employed in his 

 experimental researches. His discoveries were all made with 

 hardly any apparatus at all ; and if at any time he had been 

 led to employ instruments of a somewhat less ordinary descrip- 

 tion, he never rested satisfied until he had, as it were, after- 

 wards translated the process by resolving the problem with 

 such simple machinery that you might say he had done it 

 wholly unaided by apparatus. The experiments by which the 

 identity of lightning and electricity was demonstrated were 

 made with a sheet of brown paper, a bit of twine or silk thread, 

 and an iron key ! Lord Brougham.* 



FATAL EXPERIMENT WITH LIGHTNING. 



These experiments are not without danger ; and a flash of 

 lightning has been found to be a very unmanageable instrument. 

 In 1753, M. Richman, at St. Petersburg, was making an ex- 

 periment of this kind by drawing lightning into his room, when, 

 incautiously bringing his head too near the wire, he was struck 

 dead by the flash, which issued from it like a globe of blue fire, 

 accompanied by a dreadful explosion. 



FARADAY'S ELECTRICAL ILLUSTRATIONS. 



The following are selected from the very able series of lec- 

 tures delivered by Professor Faraday at the Royal Institution : 



The Two Electricities. After having shown by various experiments 

 the attractions and repulsions of light substances from excited glass and 

 from an excited tube of gutta-percha, Professor Faraday proceeds to 

 point out the difference in the character of the electricity produced by 

 the friction of the two substances. The opposite characters of the elec- 

 tricity evolved by the friction of glass and of that excited by the friction 

 of gutta-percha and shellac are exhibited by several experiments, in 

 which the attraction of the positive and negative electricities to each 

 other and the neutralisation of electrical action on the combination of 

 the two forces are distinctly observable. Though adopting the terms 

 " positive" and " negative" in distinguishing the electricity excited by 

 glass from that excited by gutta-percha and resinous bodies, Professor 

 Faraday is strongly opposed to the Franklinian theory from which these 

 terms are derived. According to Franklin's view of the nature of elec- 

 trical excitement, it arises from the disturbance, by friction or other 

 means, of the natural quantity of one electric fluid which is possessed 

 by all bodies ; an excited piece of glass having more than its natural 



* This illustration, it will be seen, does not literally correspond with the 

 details which precede it. 



