The name electricity is derived from the
Greek electron, amber. Long before the Christian
era, it had been observed that amber, after
being rubbed, attracts and holds light objects
that are presented to it. Sealingwax, sulphur,
and glass, possess the same power when
submitted to friction by woollen stuffs. Without the
friction no attraction occurs. Amber, therefore,
acquires new properties by friction. We can
afford to confess our ignorance of the cause.
Meanwhile, in ordinary talk and writing, we
employ the terms "electricity" and "electric
fluid" to denote a certain class of phenomena
and their causes.

Men's knowledge of this subject made no
further advance until Otto de Guericke made
the first electrical machine. It consisted
of a globe of sulphur, turned on an axis by
means of a handle, with one hand, while a piece
of woollen cloth was held against it with the
other hand. Our countryman Hawksby
substituted for the ball of sulphur, a cylinder of
glass revolving in contact with a cushion. Afterwards,
circular plates of glass were used. By
these means, stronger electrical effects, resulting
in sparks, were obtained.

Then followed the discovery that certain
bodies possess the power of conducting electricity;
which gave us conductors and non-
conductors. A corollary to this, was the
condensation of electricity, now familiar to us by
means of the Leyden jar—an open-mouthed
glass vessel partially covered inside and out
with tin foil. This apparatus, which first made
known the electric shock, was discovered by
chance at Leyden, in 1746. A philosopher
calling himself Cuneus, happened to want to
electrify some water contained in a bottle which
he held in his hand. For that purpose, he
plunged into it a metal rod communicating with
his electric machine. On attempting to remove
the rod with his other hand, he experienced a
violent commotion. His friend Muschenbræck
would try it too. He also felt the same effect,
and was so terribly frightened that he wrote to
Reaumer that for the crown of France he
would not suffer the like again. Allaman, who
had the courage to repeat the experiment,
declared that it took away his breath; it gave
Professor Winckler a convulsion fit; other curious
inquirers were similarly punished.

Our amusement at their terrors may be
restrained by remembering the awe the unknown
inspires, and also that even now it is by no
means safe to play with intensified electricity.
Familiarity made that an amusement which at
first had given such alarm. Everybody took to
giving and receiving electric shocks. The Abbé
Nollet administered them to three hundred men
of Louis the Fifteenth's guard, who, hand in
hand, felt simultaneously the new sensation.
The Leyden jar may be made of such a size as
to produce an impression which is far from
agreeable. Combined in numbers, it makes a
battery.

When we are dazzled by the lightning's flash
and are stunned and shaken by the rolling
thunder; when we see trees splintered, buildings
rent and set on fire, men and animals frightfully
calcined or mysteriously left dead; we might
hesitate to confound these grand meteoric
outbursts with the puny results of our poor little
machines. Nevertheless, Otto de Guericke,
when he discovered the electric spark, and
after him Wall, did not hesitate to regard them
as identical. They had the joy of discovering,
not in theory but in actual fact, the real cause
of the most magnificent of earthly phenomena.
Not one of their successors, from Muschenbræck
to Nollet, failed to maintain the same
opinions. But science requires proof, as well
as belief. Franklin's, therefore, will be the
great name which posterity will connect with
this inquiry.

On the 22nd of June, 1752, Franklin walked
out of Philadelphia city, accompanied by his
son, a little boy, who carried a large kite on his
back. This step was taken as a blind to the
gossips. Franklin, the most prudent of men,
did not want to incur the ridicule attending a
broken-down project. He risked quite enough
in public opinion, in allowing his boy to fly a
kite while a thunderstorm was threatening an
almost certain wetting. When fairly out of
the town, the kite was flown. The string,
soaked by the rain, became a conductor. From
its lower extremity he obtained sundry sparks.
He drew off lightning from the clouds, as we
draw electricity from frictioned glass. Lightning
and electricity were one! He might have
dared to bring home the kite himself, after this
discovery, though history does not tell us
whether he did.

Few discoveries have caused such world-wide
excitement. In June, 1753, Romas repeated
the kite experiment at Nérac, in France, and
confirmed the facts announced by the American
philosopher. His kite string, nearly three
hundred yards long, was copper wire fastened to a
short length of silken braid. At the junction
of the wire and the silk, a tin tube was
suspended, to conduct the electricity to the ground.
A tempest came on. Romas drew with his
finger trom this conductor, at first a few feeble
sparks, and then a strong one which nearly
knocked him down. After that, he made use
only of a metal "excitator" with a non-
conducting handle, and so obtained veritable tongues
of fire. Three long straws which happened to
be lying beneath the tin tube, began a mystic
dance, to the great amusement of the spectators.
As long as the experiment lasted, the clouds
ceased to dart forth lightning. Romas had
robbed them of their electricity.

Everybody would do the same. The electricity
of the atmosphere became the fashionable study.
It cost a Russian philosopher, Rickmann, his
life. In his laboratory in St. Petersburg, he
fixed an iron rod which rose above the roof and
was isolated below, by resting on a glass tube.
On the 6th of August, 1753, he set about
studying the electricity of a storm by means of
this dangerous apparatus. He approached the
iron bar too closely. His assistant saw a spark