1870.] Atmospheric Electricity. 229 



in physics or chemistry. The sudden puhlic demand for some inde- 

 finitely understood scientific education has produced a supply of 

 comparatively unqualified teachers, and those appointed in some 

 of our schools have had only a book-knowledge of the subject, but 

 little experience in making experiments, much less acquaintance 

 with the relations of science to manufactures, and entirely without 

 experience in original experimental research. The ignorance of 

 some of the simplest practical scientific matters, shown by some of 

 these otherwise educated gentlemen, has been quite astonishing, and 

 the most charitable supposition is that they are unaware of their 

 ignorance. 



The kind of teachers required for communicating scientific in- 

 struction are not men possessed only of a book-knowledge of science, 

 and the power of communicating it, nor even of men who have also 

 repeated the experiments of others as described in books, but men 

 who, in addition to all this, are familiar with the details of manu- 

 facturing operations, and have also had considerable experience in 

 original experimental research, and thereby acquired the power of 

 distinguishing truth from error in matters of science, — a quality 

 of the highest value in teaching, and which cannot be acquired in 

 any other way. 



VIII. ATMOSPHEKIC ELECTKICITY AND EECENT 

 PHENOMENA OF EEFKACTION. 



By Samuel Barber. 



Whatever connection may exist between earthquakes and elec- 

 trical disturbance of the atmosphere — a connection remarkably 

 substantiated during the past year — there seems little reason to 

 doubt that there exists between the electric waves or currents and 

 the condition of atmospheric vapour a close relation. The more 

 we examine the various changes of cloud and mist, their multiform 

 shapes and ever-varying tints, their changes in density, altitude, 

 and attractive or repulsive power, the more are we convinced that 

 a force of incalculable power and undefined extent, more subtle and 

 scarcely less potent than that of gravitation is in constant operation 

 upon them. 



The operation to which I allude, that of electricity, both atmo- 

 spheric and terrestrial, seems rather to have been studied in its 

 exceptional manifestations, than as a force subject to law, and of 

 vast and constant, though unobtrusive, influence. The difficulty 

 of rendering this science deductive, in its relation to meteorology, 

 is apparent ; the collection of data and the progress of experimental 

 research form our present basis. 



VOL. VII. R 



