858 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXX. No. 781 



ity of continued growth and usefulness, in 

 larger measure, in those sciences to the 

 study of which it is devoted. 



As a part of the commemorative exer- 

 cises at this formal opening of the Palmer 

 laboratories, I have been requested to ad- 

 dress you upon some topic connected with 

 physics and electrical engineering. Out of 

 a number of subjects which suggested 

 themselves I have chosen "atmospheric 

 electricity"— a subject which permits of a 

 treatment not too technical and which more 

 or less concerns us all. Its relation to the 

 science of physics is evident, and as to 

 electrical engineering, we electrical engi- 

 neers are sometimes made to experience a 

 wish that it were not so closely related, 

 for, under certain conditions it is perhaps 

 the one thing which menaces in a high de- 

 gree the integrity of the delicate contri- 

 "vanees which make up an electric installa- 

 tion; interfering most unexpectedly with 

 •continuity of service. 



I hope that in what I shall say on the 

 subject my physicist friends will bear with 

 me, for I realize that there is little of 

 novelty that I can present. I can but 

 emphasize what I believe to be correct 

 views and treat the matters discussed very 

 generally, if not popularly. While my at- 

 titude towards the subject itself has always 

 been that of a learner, it has often fallen 

 to my lot to exert myself to provide means 

 for the protection of electrical installations 

 from such damage by lightning storms as 

 would involve great inconvenience and per- 

 haps heavy monetary loss. The engineer 

 must produce things that do the work and 

 often the need is immediate and compel- 

 ling. The student of piire science is under 

 no such stress. 



From the remotest times the thunder- 

 storm has been one of the most impressive 

 of natural phenomena, inspiring terror in 

 men and other creatures alike. The real- 



ization of its interest and grandeur is prob- 

 ably of comparatively modern origin. It 

 is indeed not surprising that in pagan 

 mythology the lightning stroke was as- 

 cribed to the anger of the greatest of the 

 gods. It is no wonder that, in one of the 

 greatest poems of the Bible, Job is asked, 

 "Canst thou send lightnings that they may 

 go and say unto thee, ' Here we are ' ? " 



With the decay of authority and miracu- 

 lous interpretation of natural phenomena 

 and the gradual growth of rationalism and 

 scientific study the recognition of the light- 

 ning and the thunder as a result of natural 

 processes gradually came about. In the 

 seventeenth century began that gradual 

 awakening to the possibilities of the con- 

 quest of nature, the outcome of which is 

 modern science with all its great achieve- 

 ments. It was the period of Bacon, Gali- 

 leo, Gilbert, Descartes, Newton and others. 

 At first the explosive action of lightning, 

 the noise of the thunder and the subsequent 

 strong smell of ozone, which often exists, 

 suggested a kinship with gunpowder, or, 

 that certain nitrous and sulphurous con- 

 stituents of the atmosphere supposedly had 

 become fired. This naturalistic view even 

 the self-constituted witchcraft exponent. 

 Cotton Mather, willingly adopts in one of 

 his books. 



Priestley, the discoverer of oxygen gas, 

 in his "History of Electricity," published 

 in 1767, makes an interesting quotation 

 from a paper of a certain Dr. Wall in the 

 Philosophical Transactions. This Dr. Wall, 

 an experimenter in electricity in the latter 

 half of the seventeenth century, and a con- 

 temporary of Otto Guericke and later of 

 Newton, after describing his experiments 

 with rubbed amber and the production of 

 light and the cracklings therefrom, says, 

 "Now, I make no question but upon using 

 a longer and larger piece of amber, both 

 the cracklings and light would be much 



