JOURNAL AND -PROCEEDINGS. 61 
every kind of knowledge. ‘Phcenician voyagers who were in the 
habit, in the dim age, of sailing out of the Straits of Hercules, and 
perhaps of coasting along the desolate shores of Europe until they 
reached the Baltic, brought back from the savage seas of Prussia a 
substance greatly prized by the ancients for its fair color and trans- 
parency. It was amber or elektron (the Greek for amber). To the 
Phoenicians it was an article for commerce, but to Thales it possessed 
a mysterious value. He discovered that elektron, when rubbed, had 
the property of attracting to itself various light articles, as if en- 
dowed with volition. This discovery was the first step in the great 
science of Electricity. But the philosopher did no more than record 
his observation and attempt to account for it by ascribing to amber 
a soul. He supposed some hidden principal of life lay in the yellow 
jewel from the northern seas. ‘The discovery was never forgotten, 
and the peculiar property of elektron was noticed and commented 
upon by various ancient philosophers, but no one for a moment sup- 
posed that there was any connection between the animated elektron 
and the wild electricity of the thunder storm ; that the same power 
was active in both, and that the secret of amber was that of the 
thunder bolt of Jove ; that the precious elektron was to create and 
to give a name to the most wonderful of modern discoveries. 
Yet Electricity in all its varied phenomena never suffered the 
puzzled ancients to rest. It flashed along the spears of their long 
array of soldiers and tipped every helmet with the plume of fire. It 
filled even the immovable Cesar with a strange alarm. It leaped 
down from the clouds and splintered the temples and statues of 
Rome. It was seen playing around the ramparts of fortified towns, 
crowning their sentinels with strange effulgence. Often the Roman 
and Greek sailor far from land on the stormy Mediterranean saw 
pale, spectral lights dancing along the ropes of their vessels or 
clinging in fitful outlines to the mast, and called them Cesar and 
Pollux. In ancient Etruria countless students were instructed in 
the act of reading the will of the gods by lightning. The heavens 
were divided into various compartments. If the lightning flash 
appeared in one it was a favorable omen, if in another it was fatal. | 
The accomplished augurs stood upon lofty towers watching for a 
sudden gleam or a sudden peal of thunder, and knew at once by 
their divine art what undertaking would be successful when their 
