126 Electricity and Galvanism. 



of the bismuth. The magnetic needle, large and heavy as it is, 

 begins to move, and soon traverses an area of thirty degrees. By 

 the propagation of the calorific vibrations through the bismuth, its 

 electric equilibrium is restored, and a current of the positive and 

 negative fluids traverses the wire coil, and produces its well-known 

 effects upon the magnet. 



I trust I have not trespassed too long upon your patience in thus 

 bringing before you facts with which I am sure all present are fami- 

 liar. I felt, however, that your time might not be uselessly spent in 

 thus recalling to mind the well-recognised effects of electricity, before 

 passing to its more occult phenomena. 



All are ready to admit the presence of electricity in inanimate 

 matter, and, perhaps, to extend it to those animals which are en- 

 dowed with the mysterious property of benumbing the hand which 

 grasps them ; still, all may not be so willing to accord these attri- 

 butes to man, and to regard him as endowed with a large accumula- 

 tion of electric fluid. 



But nothing is easier than to elicit ample evidence of this truth ; 

 and I can readily produce the phenomena of divergence by my own 

 electricity. For this purpose I will stand upon a stool with glass 

 non-conducting legs, and thus, in an electrical sense, am no longer an 

 inhabitant of earth, being insulated from its electricity. Placing a 

 finger of one hand in contact with the cap of the electrometer before 

 me, I with the other will briskly draw a non-conducting comb 

 through my hair, the comb being connected with the earth by a 

 wire. Immediately the gold leaves diverge ; indeed, I have evolved 

 so much electricity, that one of the leaves has become torn by the 

 violence of its divergence from its companion. 



In inanimate nature, we find electricity, playing a part so impor- 

 tant, that it could scarcely be dispensed with. Many of the most 

 important of the chemical phenomena of the universe would disap- 

 pear in its absence. Little of the intensity of chemical affinity, as 

 it is termed — -few of the marvellous phenomena so profusely scattered 

 for our inspection and use in the great mineral districts of this and 

 other countries would be developed, — were it not for the presiding 

 influence of the wonderful thing we call electricity. There can, 

 indeed, be little doubt of its being one of the most energetic and 



