Fahie, from whom we take the above, alludes to Gilbert’s _Annalen der

Physik_, Vol. XIV. pp. 26 and 385, as well as to Hamel’s “Historical

Account,” p. 17, of Cooke’s reprint, and adds that Fechner, of Leipzig,

after referring to Basse’s and Erman’s experiments in his “Lehrbuch

des Galvanismus,” p. 268, goes on to explain the conductibility of the

earth in accordance with Ohm’s law. As he immediately after alludes to

the proposals for electric telegraphs, he has sometimes been credited

with the knowledge of the fact that the earth could be used to complete

the circuit in such cases. This, however, is not so, as we learn from

a letter which Fechner addressed to Prof. Zetzsche, on the 19th of

February 1872.

REFERENCES.--Zetzsche’s “Geschichte der Elektrischen

Telegraphie,” p. 19. See Dr. Turnbull’s Lectures in the _Journal

of the Franklin Institute_, Vol. XXI. pp. 273–274; “Scientific

Papers of the Royal Society,” Vol. I. p. 203.

=A.D. 1803.=--Thillaye-Platel (Antoine), French savant, who was

afterward appointed pharmacist in the Paris _Hôtel-Dieu_, gives

out as the result of numerous investigations a great many useful

precepts on the medical application of electricity and galvanism, which

will be found in his thesis presented to the Paris Ecole de Médecine on

the 15th Floréal, An. XI. These precepts, De la Rive says (“Treatise

on Elect.,” translated by C. V. Walker, London, 1858, Vol. III. pp.

587, 588), are followed to this day and are extremely simple, requiring

only the use of metallic brushes held by an insulated handle and put

into communication with the conductor of the machine; and directing

the application of electricity in its mildest form as well as its

gradual increase to as much as the invalid is able to support, besides

allowing of the concurrent employment of other means acting in the same

direction, such as frictions, blisters, etc.

Antoine Thillaye-Platel’s uncle, Jean Baptiste Jacques Thillaye

(1752–1822), French physician and Professor of Anatomy at Rouen and in

Paris, published “Eléments de l’Elect. et du Galv.,” Paris, 1816–1817,

ten years after the death of his nephew (Poggendorff, Vol. II. p. 1094;

Larousse, “Dict. Univ.,” Vol. XV. p. 131).

De la Rive alludes to cures effected by several specialists and

particularly to Father R. B. Fabre-Palaprat’s translation made in 1828

of La Beaume’s English work on the medical efficacy of electricity and

galvanism, originally published in 1820–1826. The latter, he says,

is preceded by a preface wherein the translator rivals the author on

the wonderful effects of the electric fluid as a sovereign remedy for

nearly all maladies.

REFERENCES.--For M. Thillaye’s experiments with M. Butet on

galvanic electricity, made at the Paris École de Médecine,

see the _Bulletin des Sciences de la Soc. Philom._, No. 43,

Vendémiaire An. IX, also Vol. IX. p. 231, of the “Recueil

Périodique de la Soc. Libre de Médecine du Louvre.” Consult

likewise, Poggendorff, Vol. II. p. 1094; “Royal Society

Catalogue of Scientific Papers,” Vol. V. p. 954; De la Rive’s

“Treatise,” Vol. III. pp. 587, 588; P. Sue, aîné, “Histoire du

Galvanisme,” Vol. III. p. 14. Some of the other authors who have

treated of the same subject are: F. Zwinger, 1697–1707; W. B.

Nebel, 1719; Oppermanno, 1746; E. Sguario, 1746; G. C. Pivati,

1747–1750; G. Veratti, 1748–1750; O. de Villeneuve, 1748; L.

Jallabert, 1748–1750; G. F. Bianchini, 1749; Mellarde, of Turin,

1749; Palma, 1749; F. Sauvages de la Croix, 1749–1760; J. B.

Bohadsch, 1751; O. M. Pagani, 1751; S. T. Quellmaz, 1753; A. von

Haller, 1753–1757; Linné (Linnæus), 1754; P. Paulsohn, 1754; E.

F. Runeberg, 1757; P. Brydone, 1757; Lower, 1760; De Lassone,

1763; Wm. Watson, 1763; G. F. Hjotberg, 1765; J. G. Teske,

1765; P. A. Marrherr, 1766; Gardane, 1768–1778; J. G. Krunitz,

1769; R. Symes, 1771; Sigaud de la Fond, 1771; C. A. Gerhard,

1772; Abbé Sans, 1772–1778; J. Janin de Combe Blanche, 1773;

J. B. Becket, 1773; Marrigues à Montfort L’Amaury, 1773; G. F.

Gardini, 1774; J. G. Schaffer, 1776; Mauduyt, 1776–1786; De

Thouri, 1777; A. A. Senft, 1778; Masars de Cazéles, 1780–1788;

P. F. Nicolas, 1782; Bonnefoy, 1782; Niccolas, 1783; K. G. Kuhn,

1783, 1797; C. W. Hufeland, 1783; Cosnier, Maloet, Darcet, etc.,

1783; J. P. Marat, 1784; G. Vivenzio, 1784; Carmoy, 1784–1785;

G. Piccinelli, 1785; L. E. de Tressan, “Essai ...” 1786, p.

233, etc.; Krunitz-Kirtz, 1787; Porna and Arnaud, 1787; F.

Lowndes, 1787–1791; J. H. D. Petetin, 1787, 1808; G. Pickel,

1788; Van Troostwijk and Krayenhoff, 1788; R. W. D. Thorp,

1790; G. Wilkinson, 1792; C. H. Pfaff, 1793; G. Klein, 1794;

M. Imhof, 1796; C. H. Wilkinson, 1799; C. A. Struve, 1802;

Maurice, 1810; J. Morgan, 1815; Le Blanc, 1819; P. A. Pascalis,

1819; J. Price, 1821; K. Sundelin, 1822; Girardin, 1823;

Ch. Bew, 1824; Sarlandière, 1825; S. G. Marianini, 1833; F.

Puccinotti, 1834; François Magendie, 1836, 1837; Gourdon, 1838;

C. Matteucci, Piria, etc., 1838, 1858; Breton Frères, 1844;

B. Mojon, Jr., 1845; J. E. Riadore, 1845; A. Restelli, 1846;

Budge, 1846; F. Hollick, 1847; R. Froriep, 1850; C. V. Rauch,

1851; H. Valerius, 1852; Burci, 1852; Marie-Davy, 1852–1853;

W. Gull, 1852; C. Beckensteiner, 1852–1870; F. Channing, 1852;

F. F. Videt, 1853; R. M. Lawrance, 1853–1858; G. M. Cavalleri,

1854, 1857; Briand, 1854; M. Kierski, 1854; P. Zetzell, 1856;

Ad. Becquerel, 1856–1860; E. Pfluger, 1856, 1858; Pulvermacher,

1856; P. C. Pinson, 1857; H. Ziemssen, 1857–1866; Philipeaux,

1857; J. Dropsy, 1857; M. Meyer, 1857–1869; Nivelet, 1860–1863;

A. Tripier, 1861; J. Rosenthal, 1862; Desparquets, 1862; M. P.

Poggioli (Mémoire lu à l’Institut, Oct. 31, 1853; “Annual of

Scientific Disc.,” 1865, p. 327); G. Niamias, “Della elettr.

... medicina,” 1851 (“An. of Sci. Disc.,” 1865, p. 327); A. C.

Garrat, 1866; H. Lobb, 1867; Aug. Beer, 1868; H. M. Collis (“An.

of Sci. Dis.,” 1869, p. 175); Toutain, 1870; J. R. Reynolds,

1872; Onimus and Legros, 1872; as well as Jobert de Lamballe,

Richter and Erdmon, T. Guitard, J. J. Hemmer, H. van Holsbeek,

T. Percival, J. D. Reuss and Mr. Ware (in Kuhn, Hist. II. p.

183).

=A.D. 1803.=--Berthollet (Claude Louis de), very eminent French

scientist, who was the first of the leading chemists to openly endorse

the antiphlogistic doctrine propounded by Lavoisier (A.D. 1781), and

who with Laplace founded the well-known scientific Société d’Arcueil,

admits in his “Essai de Statique Chimique” the analogy existing between

caloric and the electric fluid. He believes that the latter during

the oxidation of metals does not give out much heat, but causes only

a dilatation of bodies which separates their molecules, and he also

believes that electricity aids metallic oxidation by lessening cohesion

(Delaunay, “Manuel de l’Electricité,” p. 16).

When Berthollet and Charles passed heavy electrical charges through

platinum wire, they observed that the latter acquired a temperature

about equal to that of boiling water, and therefore not sufficient to

fuse the wire. If the metal is one easily oxidized, the separation of

the molecules causes them to unite with the oxygen of the air, and it

is therefore the oxidation itself which produces the consequent high

degree of heat.

REFERENCES.--“Essai de Statique,” Vol. I. pp. 209 and 263.

See also “Biographie Générale,” Vol. V. p. 716; Young’s

“Lectures,” London, 1807, Vol. II. p. 423, and _Nicholson’s

Journal_, Vol. VIII. p. 80; Larousse, “Dict. Univ.,” Vol. II.

p. 617; “Sci. Papers of Roy. Soc.,” Vol. I. pp. 321–323; Sir H.

Davy, “Bakerian Lectures,” London 1840, pp. 41, 94, regarding

more particularly Berthollet’s elaborate experiments on the

decomposition of ammonia by electricity alluded to in _Mém. de

l’Acad._, 1782, p. 324, also Delaunay, “Manuel,” pp. 17, 150.

=A.D. 1804.=--Jacotot (Pierre), Professor of Astronomy at the Lyceum

of Dijon, states, at p. 223, Vol. I of his “Eléments de Physique

Expérimentale,” that Wlik, teacher of natural philosophy at Stockholm,

invented the electrophorus during the year 1762. Jacotot, of course,

refers to Johannes Carolus Wilcke (see A.D. 1757) who, during the

month of August 1762, constructed a resinous apparatus to which he

gave the name of _perpetual_ electrophorus (Scripta Academiæ Suec.,

1762). Books V, VI and VII of the same volume treat respectively of

Electricity, Galvanism and Magnetism.

REFERENCES.--With regard to the _perpetual_ electrophorus,

see L. S. Jacquet de Malzet “Lettre d’un Abbé de Vienne ...”

Vienna, 1775, translated into German by “A. H.” (A. Hildebrand),

Wien, 1776; also C. Cuyper’s “Exposé d’une méthode ...” La

Haye, 1778; and, for other improvements, Marsiglio Landriani,

_Scelta d’Opuscoli_, 12mo, XIX. p. 73; J. F. Klinkosch, _Mém.

de l’Acad. de Prague_, III. p. 218. Consult J. C. Poggendorff,

“Biog.-Litter. Hand. ...” Vol. I. pp. 1, 182, and Larousse,

“Dictionnaire Universel,” Vol. IX. p. 868.

=A.D. 1804.=--Hatchett (Charles), F.R.S. and foreign member of

the Paris Academy, communicates through a paper entitled “An Analysis

of the Magnetical Pyrites ...” his conclusions that iron must be

combined with a large portion of either carbon, phosphorus or sulphur

in order to acquire the property of receiving permanent magnetic

virtue, there being, however, a limit beyond which an excess of either

of the above-named substances renders the compound wholly incapable of

exhibiting the magnetic energy. In this connection, the interesting

observations of Messrs. Seebeck, Chenevix and Dr. Matt. Young on

anti-magnetic bodies, in Vol. XIV. p. 27, of the eighth “Encyclopædia

Britannica,” will repay perusal.

Three years before, on the 26th of November 1801, Mr. Hatchett

had communicated to the Royal Society an interesting paper on

_columbium_, a new metallic substance found in an ore from the

State of Massachusetts.

REFERENCES.--“Abstracts of the papers ... of the _Phil.

Trans._,” Vol. I. p. 155; also the _Phil. Trans._ for 1804, p.

315; _Phil. Mag._, Vol. XXI. pp. 133 and 213; Poggendorff, Vol.

I. p. 1031; “Cat. Sc. Papers Roy. Soc.,” Vol. I. p. 155.

=A.D. 1804.=--M. Dyckhoff publishes in _Nicholson’s Journal_, Vol. VII.

pp. 303 and 305, “Experiments on the activity of a galvanic pile in

which thin strata of air are substituted instead of the wet bodies.”

His description of what has by many been called the first practical dry

pile is as follows:

“I constructed a pile with discs of copper and zinc, and little bits of

thin green glass about the size of a lentil, three of which I placed

triangularly in the intervals that separated the metallic plates. Thus

between each pair of metals I had a thin stratum of air instead of a

wet substance. A pile of ten pairs tried by the condenser affected the

electrometer as powerfully as a common (voltaic) pile of five pairs.”

It was in the year following, 1805, that Wilhelm Behrends, of

Frankfort, constructed his dry pile consisting of eighty pairs of discs

of copper, zinc and gilt paper (De la Rive, “Treatise on Electricity,”

Vol. II. p. 852).

The investigations of Maréchaux, De Luc, Zamboni and others in the same

line will appear in due course.

REFERENCES.--Young’s “Lectures,” London, 1807, Vol. II. p. 430,

and _Nicholson’s Journal_, Vol. VII. pp. 303 and 305, Becquerel,

Paris, 1851, p. 34; Sturgeon’s “Lectures on Galvanism,” p.

73; Sturgeon’s _Annals of Electricity_, Vol. VIII. pp. 378,

etc.; _Journal de Chimie de Van Mons_, No. 11, p. 190, and

also No. 12, p. 300, for Bouvier de Jodoigne’s experiments;

“Catalogue Scientific Papers of the Royal Society,” Vol. II. p.

432; Gilbert, XIX. pp. 355–360, and Wilkinson’s denial of the

effectiveness of Dyckhoff’s pile, in _Nicholson’s Journal_, Vol.

VIII. p. 1.

=A.D. 1804.=--Gay-Lussac (Joseph Louis), one of the most prominent

of modern scientists, who was for a time assistant to Berthollet,

makes, in Paris, two ascents in a balloon, at heights varying between

12,000 and 23,623 feet, for the purpose of carrying out extensive

observations upon terrestrial magnetism. The latter are recorded at

length in the _Journal de Physique_, Vol. LIX, and are alluded to

in the articles “Aeronautics” and “Meteorology” of the “Encycl. Brit.,”

likewise at Biot, A.D. 1803, and in paragraphs 2961 and 2962

of Faraday’s “Experimental Researches in Electricity,” while at p. 193,

Vol. XXI of the _Phil. Mag._ will be found the account of a very

interesting aerial voyage made during January of the same year (1804)

by M. Sacharof, of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

In conjunction with Louis Jacques Thénard (alluded to at Fourcroy, A.D.

1801), Gay-Lussac communicates to the _Annales de Chimie_ for 1810

(Vol. LXXIII. p. 197, etc.), a paper relative to their “preparation of

an ammoniacal amalgam through the agency of the voltaic pile” which

had been read at the “Institut National” during the month of September

1809, and which is also alluded to at pp. 250, etc., of the _Annales

de Chimie_, Vol. LXXVIII for 1811. Their united “physico-chemical

researches on the voltaic pile ...” are reviewed at pp. 243, etc., of

the last-named volume and are likewise alluded to at p. 36 of Vol.

LXXIX for the same year. The largest of the many piles they employed in

their several experiments consisted of 600 pairs with a square surface

of 1800 feet (Figuier, “Exposition et Histoire ...” 1857, Vol. IV. pp.

387 and 433; _Journal des Mines_, Vol. XXX. pp. 5–56; Schweigger’s

_Journal_, Vol. II. pp. 409–423).

At pp. 76, etc., of the second volume of the _Annales de Chimie et de

Physique_ for the month of May 1816, are to be found the observations

of Gay-Lussac on dry voltaic piles, especially upon those of Desormes

et Hachette, De Luc and Zamboni. He remarks that the last named

does not appear to have so constructed his pile as to enable the

oscillations of the needle to indicate an exact measure of time

(Schweigger’s _Journal für Chemie_, Vol. XV. pp. 113, 130–132), but

that the so-called electric clocks of M. Ramis, of Munich, and of M.

Streizig, of Verona, readily pointed the hours, minutes and seconds

(Schweigger’s _Journal_, Vol. XIII. p. 379; Ronalds’ “Catalogue” for

notices of his own as well as of the clocks of Ramis and of Streizig).

The investigations of Gay-Lussac and Humboldt, relative to the

magnetic intensity and dip or inclination, throughout France, Germany,

Switzerland and Italy, will be found recorded in the first volume of

_Mém. d’Arcueil_, 1807, while at p. 284, Vol. X, and at pp. 305–309 of

the _Annales de Chimie_ are observations of Gay-Lussac and Arago, and

at p. 509 of the fourth volume of Figuier’s “Exposition et Histoire,”

etc., Paris, 1857, appears an extended account of the special report

upon lightning rods, which Gay-Lussac was authorized by the Natural

Philosophy Division of the French Academy of Sciences to prepare during

the year 1823, and the outcome of which appears in the _Comptes Rendus

des Séances_ ... Vol. XXXIX. p. 1142.

REFERENCES.--Faraday’s “Experimental Researches,” 1839, Vol.

I. p. 217, note, as well as paragraph No. 741 “Recherches

Physicochimiques,” p. 12, and J. Farrar’s “Elem. of Elec. Mag.,”

1826, pp. 150–152; while for Gay-Lussac and Thénard’s repetition

of Sir Humphry Davy’s experiments on the decomposition of the

alkalies, see _Phil. Mag._, Vol. XXXII. p. 88; “Instruction sur

les parat ...” for Gay-Lussac, Fresnel, Lefevre, Gineau and

others, Paris, 1824, and for Gay-Lussac and Pouillet, Paris,

1855. Other reports on lightning rods not hitherto specially

mentioned are: J. Langenbucher, 1783; Beyer, 1806–1809; P.

Beltrami, 1823; Bourges, at Bordeaux, 1837; Boudin, 1855, and

J. Bushee, Amer. Assoc., 1868. The observations of Thénard

and Dulong are recorded at paragraphs 609, 612, 636, 637 of

Faraday’s “Experimental Researches,” as well as at Vols. XXIII.

p. 440; XXIV. pp. 380, 383 and 386 of the _Annales de Chimie_,

and those of Thénard, Fourcroy, and Vauquelin will be found in

the _Mém. des Soc. Sav. et Lit._, Vol. I. p. 204. See “Royal

Society Catalogue of Sc. Papers,” Vol. II. pp. 800–807; Vol.

V. pp. 944–948; Vol. VI. p. 666; Vol. VII. p. 748; Vol. VIII.

p. 1072; “Discours de M. Becquerel ...” _Inst. Nat. Acad. des

Sciences_; _Phil. Mag._, Vols. XX. p. 83; XXI. p. 220; _Sci. Am.

Supp._, p. 11794; _Edin. Magazine_, Vol. V. p. 471; _Annales

de Chimie et Physique_ for 1818, Vol. VIII. pp. 68, 161, 163;

the eighth “Britannica,” Vol. VIII. pp. 532, 539, 573 for

Gay-Lussac’s additional experiments; the ninth “Britannica,”

Vol. X. pp. 122, etc.; also _Report Brit. Asso._, London,

1838, pp. 7–8, for the magnetic observations of Gay-Lussac and

Humboldt on the European Continent, likewise Sir Humphry Davy

“Bakerian Lectures,” London, 1840, pp. 134–137; Humboldt, at

A.D. 1799, and Cruikshanks, at A.D. 1800. For a description of

the Volta eudiometer invented by Gay-Lussac, see _Ann. de Ch. et

Phys._, Vol. IV. p. 188, also Dr. Hare in _Silliman’s Journal_,

Vol. II. p. 312, and for the “Memoir of Louis Jacques Thénard,”

by M. Flourens, see the “Report of the Smithsonian Institution”

for 1862, pp. 372–383; “Journal des Savants” for Dec. 1850;

Meyer’s “Konversations-Lexikon” Leipzig und Wien, 1894, Vol.

VII. pp. 140–141; “Dict. Général de Biog. et d’Histoire,” Paris,

2nd ed., pp. 1218–1219.

=A.D. 1805.=--Mr. Joseph Davis submits to the London Society of Arts

an improvement upon the telegraph of Lord George Murray (A.D. 1795),

consisting of the addition of a seventh shutter, which, instead of

being poised on a horizontal axis, is made to slide up and down in

grooves in the centre of the framework; so that it may either range

with the six shutters or, if not required at all, may descend into a

space provided for it in the roof of the Observatory. By this simple

device the power of the apparatus is quadrupled, it being made capable

of indicating in all 252 changes.

The night signals are given by a coloured lamp mounted in the centre of

the seventh or sliding shutter and by six white lights fastened to the

outside of the frame, to produce, through their display or concealment

by slides, the same signals as, under ordinary circumstances, are given

by the opening and closing of the shutters.

=A.D. 1805.=--Grotthus--Grothuss--(Theodor--more properly Christian

Johann Dietrich, Baron von) makes known his theory of electro-chemical

decompositions, through the “Mémoire,” etc., published in 12mo at Rome,

and of which an English translation appeared in London during 1806.

As Lardner and Fahie have it, Grotthus’ theory was the most plausible

of the many proposed at this early period of experimental inquiry

to explain chemical decomposition by the voltaic apparatus. The

above-named “Mémoire ...” which appeared in the _Phil. Mag._ for 1806,

Vol. XXV. pp. 330–334, is analyzed by both of these writers (Lardner,

“Electricity, Mag. and Meteor.,” Vol. I. pp. 135–137, or “Popular

Lectures,” 1851, Vol. I. pp. 348, 349; Fahie, “Hist. of Elec. Teleg.,”

pp. 210, 211), but it may be briefly stated in the words of Sir David

Brewster as follows:

“Grotthus (_Annales de Chimie_ for 1806, Vol. LVIII. p. 61) regards the

pile as an electric magnet with _attracting_ and _repelling_ poles, the

one attracting hydrogen and repelling oxygen, and the other attracting

oxygen and repelling hydrogen. The force exerted upon each molecule of

the body is supposed to be inversely as its distance from the poles,

and a succession of decompositions and recompositions is supposed to

exist among the intervening molecules.”

In this connection it will be well to add here, by way of contrast,

and again according to Sir David Brewster, the views held by other

experimentalists of the same period. Sir Humphry Davy adopts the idea

of attractions at the poles, diminishing to the middle or neutral

points, and he thinks a succession of decompositions and recompositions

probable. Messrs. Riffault and Chompré regard the negative current as

collecting and carrying the acids on to the positive pole, and the

positive current as doing the same, with the bases toward the negative

pole. Biot attributes the effects to the opposite electrical states of

the decomposing substances in the vicinity of the two poles. M. De la

Rive considers the portions decomposed to be those contiguous to both

poles, the current from the positive pole combining with the hydrogen

or the bases which are there present, and leaving the oxygen or acids

at liberty, but carrying the substances in union with it across to the

negative pole, where it is separated from them, entering the conducting

metal, and leaving on its surface the hydrogen or its bases. Faraday

regards the poles as exercising no specific action, but merely as

surfaces or doors by which the electricity enters into or passes out of

the substance undergoing decomposition. He supposes that “the effects

are due to a modification of the electric current and the chemical

affinity of the particles through or by which that current is passing,

giving them the power of acting more forcibly in one direction than in

another, and consequently making them travel by a series of successive

decompositions and recompositions in opposite directions, and finally

causing their repulsion or exclusion at the boundaries of the body

under decomposition in the direction of the current, and that, in

larger or smaller quantities, according as the current is more or less

powerful.”

In 1810 Grotthus published his “Uber d. elektricität ... wassers

entwickelt,” one of his curious observations being the fact that when

water is rapidly frozen in a Leyden jar, the outside coating, not being

insulated, receives a weak electrical discharge, the inside being

positive and the outside negative, and when the ice is rapidly thawed,

the inside is negative and the outside positive.

REFERENCES.--Faraday’s “Experimental Researches,” articles 481,

485, 489, 492, 507, etc.; also _Phil. Mag._, Vols. XXIV. p. 183,

and XXVIII. pp. 35 and 59; Joseph Izarn, “Manuel du Galvanisme,”

pp. 280–284 for M. Riffault and N. M. Chompré; Whewell, “History

of the Inductive Sciences,” Vol. II. p. 304; Noad, “Manual,” pp.

364, 365; William R. Grove, “On Grotthus’ Theory ...” London,

1845; J. S. C. Schweigger’s _Journal_, Vols. III, IV, IX, XXVIII

and XXXI; A. F. Gehlen’s _Journal_ for 1808; L. W. Gilbert’s

_Annalen der Physik_, Vol. LXVII; Ostwald, “Elektrochemie,”

1896, pp. 309–316; A. N. Scherer’s _Allgem. nördliche Annal. d.

Chemie_, Vol. IV; _Annales de Chimie_, Vol. LXIII; _Phil. Mag._,

Vol. LIX. p. 67; J. C. Poggendorff, “Biog. Literarisches,” etc.,

Vol. I. pp. 959, 960; “Royal Society Catalogue of Scientific

Papers,” Vol. III. pp. 29–31.

Grotthus’ theory was extended by Rudolf Clausius, and the latter’s

theory in turn gave way to that of Svante Arrhénius. Clausius

maintained that the exchanges were going on continuously, although no

current was flowing; while the assumption of Arrhénius was that in

every electrolyte, a certain number of molecules break up into ions and

that all electrolytes contain some of these free ions. This is the much

controverted dissociation theory (Dr. Henry S. Carhart’s Presidential

Address).

The “Encycl. Amer.,” New York, 1903, Vol. II says that the

establishment of the theory of electrolytic dissociation, which is due

to the noted Swedish chemist, Svante Arrhénius, supplies a reasonable

explanation of many chemical phenomena otherwise insoluble, and

correlates various facts between which no connection was previously

discovered. Two important publications by Arrhénius are “Sur la

conductibilité galvanique des electrolytes” (1884), and a treatise in

German on electro-chemistry (1902). (See “Le Moniteur Scientifique,”

Avril 1904, pp. 241–243.)

Rudolf Clausius, German scientist (1822–1888), “one of the most

celebrated mathematical physicists of the nineteenth century,”

communicated in 1850 to the Berlin Academy of Sciences the paper

wherein he announced the second law of thermo-dynamics, that “heat

cannot of itself pass from a colder to a hotter body.” The honour of

establishing the science of thermo-dynamics upon a scientific basis

he thus shares with Rankine and Thomson (“Encycl. Amer.,” Vol. V.

n. p.; “New Inter. Encycl.,” New York, 1902, Vol. IV. p. 711. For

biography, consult Riecke, “Rudolf Clausius,” Göttingen, 1889; “Meyer’s

Konversations-Lexikon,” Leipzig, 1894, Vol. IV. p. 213).

=A.D. 1805.=--Alexander Tilloch’s _Philosophical Magazine_, Vol. XXI.

p. 279, has a letter addressed by W. Peel to the editor, under date

Cambridge, April 23, 1805, relative to the “Production of Muriate of

Soda by the Galvanic Decomposition of Water.” This is followed by a

communication dated Pisa, May 9, 1805, from Dr. Francis G. Pacchiani,

Professor of Philosophy at the Pisa University (Rees’ Encyclopedia,

“Galvanism,” p. 15), to Lawrence Pignotti, Historiographer to the King,

entitled “Formation of Muriatic Acid by Galvanism,” as well as by two

letters, one from W. Peel, dated Cambridge, June 4, 1805, on “The

Production of Muriates by the Galvanic Decomposition of Water,” and the

other from Dr. Wm. Henry, dated Manchester, July 23, 1805, relative to

the above-named processes and to the latter’s own experiments in the

same direction.

REFERENCES.--_Phil. Mag._, Vol. XXII. pp. 153, 179, 188; XXIII.

p. 257; XXIV. p. 183; XXVII. p. 82; XXVIII. p. 306; Sir Humphry

Davy’s allusion to above, as well as his earlier experiments

communicated to Dr. Beddoes, Sir James Hall, Mr. Clayfield

and others, in “Bakerian Lectures,” London, 1840, pp. 2, 3;

Sylvester, at A.D. 1806, and Donovan, at A.D. 1812; Lardner’s

“Lectures on Science and Art,” Vol. I. p. 350; Faraday’s

“Experimental Researches,” No. 314; J. F. Macaire, _Ann. Ch.

et Phys._, XVII. 1821; Marni “Sulla formazione ...”; G. B.

Polcastro, “Giorn. Ital. Letter del Dal Rio,” X. p. 182, 1805;

Cioni and Petrini, _Phil. Mag._, XXIV. 167, 1806; The Paris

Galvani Society, _Phil. Mag._, XXIV. p. 172, and _Ann. de Ch._,

Vol. LVI, 1806; A. B. Hortentz, _Phil. Mag._, Vol. XXIV. p.

91, 1806; Leop. de Buch, _Phil. Mag._, Vol. XXIV. p. 244, 1806;

Veau Delaunay, _Phil. Mag._, XXVII. p. 260, 1807; G. Innocenti,

_Nuova Scelta d’ Opuscoli_, II. p. 96, 1807; P. Alemanni, _Phil.

Mag._, Vol. XXVII. p. 339, 1807; C. H. Pfaff, _Phil. Mag._,

XXVII. p. 338, and XXIX. p. 19; _Ann. de Chim._, Vols. LX. p.

314; LXII. p. 23, 1807–8; Wm. Henry, _Phil. Mag._, Vols. XXII.

p. 183; XL. p. 337, 1805–1812; F. G. Pacchiani, in _Nuova Scelta

d’ Opuscoli_, I. p. 277; Brugnatelli, _An. di Chimica_, Vol.

XXII. pp. 125, 134 and 144; _Edin. Med. and Surg. Journal_, of

July 1, 1805; _Phil. Mag._, Vol. XXIV. p. 176, for his letter to

Fabbroni. For Dr. Wm. Henry, consult “Bibl. Britan.,” Vol. XV,

An. VIII. pp. 35, 293; _Phil. Mag._, Vols. VII for 1830, p. 228;

XXII. p. 183; XXXII. p. 277, and XL. p. 337; _Phil. Trans._,

Part II for 1808.

=A.D. 1806.=--On Oct. 16, Mr. Wm. Skrimshire, Jr., addresses from

Wisbech a letter to Mr. Cuthbertson on the absorption of electric light

by different bodies.

In this letter, which is given in full at pp. 281–283 of the fifteenth

volume of _Nicholson’s Journal_, he says he was led to his

experiments by the well-known fact that when the electric current is

passed through a lump of sugar it makes the latter appear luminous.

He tried many calcareous species, chalk, Kelton stone, the phosphate,

nitrate, sulphates of lime, etc. etc., and he details some of the

results obtained, the most interesting being that given by the

sulphuret of lime, commonly called Canton’s phosphorus, which, he says,

is, by the electric explosion, rendered the most luminous of all the

substances tried.

=A.D. 1806.=--Heidmann (J. A.), physician at Vienna, publishes his

“Theorie der Galvanischen Electricität ...” or “Theory of Galvanic

Electricity deduced from Actual Experimentation” (London, 1807). This

had been preceded by other important electrical reviews at Vienna

during the years 1799, 1803 and 1804.

As stated by Guyton de Morveau, Heidmann has given us in the above the

complete history of galvanic electricity--including the experiments

and observations of Aldini, Arnim, Biot, Boeckman, Carminati, Cavallo,

Creve, Davy, Fontana, Fowler, Gilbert, Haldane, Hallé, Helebrandt,

Humboldt, Nicholson, Pepys, Pfaff, Reil, Reinhold, Ritter, Valli,

Vassalli-Eandi, etc. etc.--together with the description of the

construction and the relation of all parts of the galvanic pile, which

is called by him a galvanic battery. Heidmann also gives an account of

his many interesting experiments with frogs placed in different liquids

as well as with the galvanic chain, and he reviews all the known

phenomena presented by the voltaic pile.

REFERENCES.--“Annales de Chimie,” Vol. LXI. p. 70; _Phil. Mag._,

Vol. XXVIII. p. 97.

=A.D. 1806.=--Dr. Joseph Baronio of Milan constructs a galvanic pile

composed exclusively of vegetable substances. He makes his discs, two

inches in diameter, of beet roots (_bietola rossa_) and of walnut

wood (_legno di noce_), the latter having been freed from all of its

resinous substance by treatment in a solution of vinegar and cream

of tartar. Through this pile, he produced convulsions in a frog by

excitation with a leaf of _cochlearia_ (spoon wort or scurvy-grass).

REFERENCES.--“Annales de Chimie,” Vol. LVII. pp. 64–67; Vol.

LXII. p. 212; _Phil. Mag._, Vol. XXIII. p. 283; “Nota di

Brugnatelli sopra una pila di sostanze vegetabili,” Pavia, 1805

(“Am. di Chim. di Brugnatelli,” Vol. XXII. p. 301); Volta, in

_Giorn. Fis. Med._, Vol. II. p. 122.

=A.D. 1806.=--Sylvester (Charles), the author of the articles

on “Galvanism and Voltaism” in Rees’ “Encyclopædia,” announces that

he obtains muriatic acid from pure water by passing through it the

galvanic current. Mr. Wollaston, however, asserts this cannot be

done unless the current traverses some vegetable or animal substance

containing that acid.

His first paper on the subject appeared in _Nicholson’s Journal_, 1806,

Vol. XIV. pp. 94–98; in Gehlen’s _Journ. der Chemie_, Vol. II for

1806, pp. 152–153, and in Gilbert’s _Annalen der Physik_, Vol. XXV.

pp. 107–112, 454–457. The paper following is entitled “Repetition of

the Experiment in which Acids and Alkalies are Produced in Pure Water

by Galvanism (no animal or vegetable matter, nor oxidable metal being

present).”

REFERENCES.--_Nicholson’s Journal_, Vol. XV. pp. 50–52; Vol.

XXIII. pp. 258–260; Gehlen’s _Journal_, Vol. II, 1806, pp.

155–158. For his other papers, consult _Nicholson’s Journal_,

Vol. IX. p. 179; Vol. X. pp. 166–167; Vol. XIX. pp. 156–157;

Vol. XXVI. pp. 72–75; Gilbert’s _Annalen_, Vol. XXIII. pp.

441–447; “Roy. Soc. Catal. of Sc. Papers,” Vol. V. pp.

900–901; Sturgeon’s _Scientific Researches_, Bury, 1850, p.

153; Sir Humphry Davy’s lecture “On some chemical agencies of

electricity,” read Nov. 20, 1806; _Annales de Chimie_, Vol. LX.

p. 314; Vol. LXI. pp. 330–331; “Bibl. Britan.,” Vol. XXXIII,

1806, p. 324.

=A.D. 1806.=--Maréchaux (Peter Ludwig), correspondent of the French

Galvani Society at Wesel, is the first to construct an effective

dry pile containing paper discs. He makes known through M. Riffault

(_Annales de Chimie_, Vol. LVII for January 1806, p. 61), that water

is not essential to the production of galvanic effects, and his

experiments are repeated for the Chemical Society by M. Veau Delaunay,

as shown in _Journal de Physique_, Messidor, An. XIV.

This “Maréchausian Pile,” or _colonne pendule_, as it was originally

denominated, consists of pairs of oven-dried cardboard, pasteboard,

or blotting-paper, and of copper discs all pierced in such manner

as to be suspended by three silken cords which hold them fast in

position. Sturgeon remarks (“Researches,” pp. 199 and 239) that in this

dry column the electric pulsations are, in consequence of the very

great number of interrupting papers, less frequent than in either the

processes of Volta or in that of Seebeck, notwithstanding which the

instrument produces slow pulsatory currents.

REFERENCES.--W. Sturgeon’s “Annals of Electricity,” Vol. I. p.

256, note; Vol. VIII. pp. 379, 484; _Phil. Mag._, Vol. XXIV.

p. 183; Poggendorff, Vol. II. p. 46; “Roy. Soc. Cat. of Sci.

Papers,” Vol. IV. p. 236; Gilbert’s _Annalen der Physik_, Vols.

X.-XXVII _passim_, also Vol. XV. p. 98 and Vol. XVI. p. 115

giving a description of the Maréchaux electro-micrometer (screw

and silver leaf), likewise Vol. XXII, containing an account of

the observations made by M. Paul Erman.

=A.D. 1807.=--Young (Thomas), M.D., a very celebrated English

scientist, “eminent alike in almost every department of human

learning,” who was the associate of Davy at the Royal Institution, and

who became the successor of Volta as Foreign Associate of the French

Academy of Sciences, publishes his very elaborate “Course of Lectures

on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts,” upon which he was

assiduously engaged for five years, and a new edition of which was

issued (with additional references and notes) by the Rev. P. Kelland,

M.A., F.R.S., during the year 1845.

The above-named work comprises the sixty lectures which Dr. Young

delivered during his connection with the Royal Institution and includes

also his optical and other memoirs, as well as a very extended

classified catalogue of publications in every leading department of

science. His biographer in the “English Encyclopædia” remarks that

Young’s lectures embody a complete system of natural and mechanical

philosophy, drawn from original sources, and are distinguished

not only by extent of learning and accuracy of statement, but by

the beauty and originality of the theoretical principles. One of

these is the principle of interferences in the undulatory theory of

light. “This discovery alone,” says Sir John Herschel, “would have

sufficed to have placed its author in the highest rank of scientific

immortality, were even his other almost innumerable claims to such a

distinction disregarded.” The first reception, however, of Dr. Young’s

investigations of light was very unfavourable. The novel theory of

undulation especially was attacked in the _Edinburgh Review_, and

Dr. Young wrote a pamphlet in reply, of which it is said but one copy

was sold, but it is now generally received in place of the molecular or

emanatory theory.

His review and treatment of the field of electrical and magnetic

phenomena, as may be imagined from the foregoing, is very extensive,

and as no justice could be done it by making therefrom such extracts as

would suitably come within the scope of the present “Bibliographical

History,” only an extract from the lecture treating of “Aqueous and

Igneous Meteors” will here be given.

Speaking of the aurora borealis, he says “that it is doubtful if its

light may not be of an electrical nature. The phenomenon is certainly

connected with the general cause of magnetism. The primitive beams of

light are supposed to be at an elevation of at least 50 or 100 miles

above the earth, and everywhere in a direction parallel to that of the

dipping needle; but perhaps, although the substance is magnetical, the

illumination, which renders it visible, may still be derived from the

passage of electricity, at too great a distance to be discovered by any

other test.... It is certainly in some measure a magnetical phenomenon;

and if iron were the only substance capable of exhibiting magnetic

effects, it would follow that some ferruginous particles must exist in

the upper regions of the atmosphere. The light usually attending this

magnetical meteor may possibly be derived from electricity, which may

be the immediate cause of a change in the distribution of the magnetic

fluid contained in the ferruginous vapours that are imagined to float

in the air.”

The assumption of ferruginous particles or vapours, remarks Prof.

Robert Jameson, of the Edinburgh University, seems, however, purely

gratuitous and imaginary; and as iron is not the only substance or

matter capable of exhibiting magnetic effects, light itself being

susceptible of polarization, the above hypothesis is, therefore,

untenable even on the ground upon which it has been rested by its

author. But it is, nevertheless, certain that the cause of this

luminous meteor is intimately connected with magnetism and electricity;

or, rather, as the magnetic is variously modified and effected by the

electric power, with the phenomena of electro-magnetism.

REFERENCES.--Young’s Catalogue for “Aurora Borealis” and

“Terrestrial Magnetism” (“Lectures,” London, 1807, Vol. II. pp.

440–443, 488–490), “Journal Roy. Inst.,” Vol. I; Dr. George

Peacock’s “Life of Thomas Young”; also “Miscellaneous Works of

T. Young,” London, 1855; “Memoirs of the Life of Thos. Young,”

London, 1831; also Vol. XIII of John Leitch’s “Hieroglyphical

Essays and Correspondence,” all of which contain every

contribution made by the scientist to the _Phil. Trans._, as

well as many other important articles communicated by him to

other scientific publications of his time; “Eloge Historique

de Dr. Thomas Young,” par M. Arago, in _Mém. de l’Acad. Roy.

des Sc._, etc., Tome XIII. p. 57; _Quarterly Review_ for April

1814; Tyndall, “Heat as a Mode of Motion,” 1873, pp. 267,

268; _Annales de Chimie_, Feb. 1815; Whewell, “History of the

Inductive Sciences,” 1859, Vol. II. pp. 92, 96, 106, 111–118.

=A.D. 1808.=--Pasley (Charles William), F.R.S., D.C.L., K.C.B., who

was at the time aide-de-camp to Sir John Moore, became Major-General

in 1841 and Lieutenant-General in 1851, gives at pp. 205, 292, Vol.

XXIX, and at p. 339, Vol. XXXV of Tilloch’s _Philosophical Magazine_,

a description of the original and improved methods of constructing his

“polygrammatic telegraph.”

The apparatus, as first devised by him between the years 1804 and

1807, consists of four posts, each bearing a pair of pivoted arms,

which latter can be placed at different angles to indicate all desired

numerals and letters. After he had seen the French semaphore during

1809 he improved his telegraph, employing but one post, upon which were

three pairs of pivoted arms representing hundreds, tens and units.

In 1823 Pasley (then a Lieutenant-Colonel, Royal Engineers) issued

a pamphlet entitled “Description of the Universal Telegraph for Day

and Night Signals,” wherein he announces the abandonment of the

polygrammatic principle. For day service he employs an upright post

with two movable arms attached to the top on a pivot. Each arm is

capable of assuming seven different positions, besides the quiescent

position called the _stop_, in which the arms are turned down and

concealed by the post. To prevent signals being seen in reverse,

another arm, called an _indicator_, is added to one side of the post.

For night signals he places a central lamp at the top of the post, as

well as a lamp at the end of each arm, and suspends a fourth lamp, as

an indicator, upon a light crane projecting horizontally beyond the

range of both movable arms. Motion to the arms was communicated by

means of an endless chain passing over two pulleys. Up to this time

the semaphores employed by the Admiralty had been constructed without

provision being made for the display of night signals.

Pasley was the first to apply the heating power of the galvanic battery

to a useful practical purpose. While engaged on the River Thames he was

written to by Mr. Palmer (Alfred Smee, “Electro-Metallurgy,” p. 297),

who advised him to employ the galvanic battery instead of the long fuse

then in common use, and as soon as he was made acquainted with the

method of operating he at once adopted it and applied it effectively,

during the year 1839, to the removal of the sunken hull of the “Royal

George,” at Spithead.

REFERENCES.--Sturgeon’s “Scientific Researches,” Bury, 1850, p.

174; Knight’s “Mech. Dict.,” Vol. I. p. 784; also “Documents

relatifs à l’emploi de l’Electricité,” etc., Paris, 1841, taken

from the _United Service Journal_ and the “Militaire Spectateur

Hollandais.” Consult likewise, “Trans. of the Society ... Arts,”

Vol. XXXIX, London, 1821, for Peter Barlow, XL. pp. 76–100,

and for Lieut. Nicolas Harris Nicolas, XL. p. 104; also Vol.

XLII, London, 1824, for Mr. A. Westcott, pp. 165–166. A patented

telegraph by James Boaz is alluded to in Vol. XII. pp. 84–87 of

the _Phil. Magazine_.

Following close upon Pasley’s original telegraphic contrivance were

several other methods of conveying intelligence at a distance,

introduced at this period, worthy of mention here.

The Chevalier A. N. Edelcrantz, Swedish savant, sent to the London

Society of Arts a model of his apparatus, which is to be found minutely

described in Vol. XXVI. pp. 20, 184–189, of the _Transactions_ of

that institution. A description of his earlier contrivances for the

same purpose had already been published at Stockholm in the year

1796, and after being translated into French had been noticed in

William Nicholson’s _Journal of Natural Philosophy_ for 1803. The

one he finally adopted in 1808 consisted of ten boards placed in

three vertical ranks, the central one having four boards and the side

ranks three boards each. By this arrangement 1024 signals could be

clearly shown, and it was possible, by observing the _order_ in which

the boards were exhibited, to make as many as 4,037,912 changes. He

subsequently advised attaching lamps to the boards for night service.

His system of working the boards, though very complicated, could be

controlled by only one person, while the English method required

several men to hold the shutters during heavy weather. As it was, his

method is said to have been in constant use for fully twelve years

prior to 1808 on both sides of the Baltic, and to have likewise served

to transmit signals between Sweden and England.

Mr. Henry Ward, who had observed the difficulty with which the

telegraph was worked at Blandford, in Dorsetshire, contrived the

apparatus described in Vol. XXVI. pp. 20, 207–209 of the London

_Journal of the Society of Arts_. The grooved wheels which are

fixed upon the axis of the shutters to receive the ropes by which they

are turned have the grooved portion of the rim formed in two segments,

which are so attached to the periphery of the wheels by steel springs

that they fly off and remain a little distance off when there is

no strain upon the ropes, although so soon as a rope is pulled its

pressure forces the segments into close contact with the solid rim of

the wheel. In the segments are two notches, which, when the shutters

are in either of their required positions, engage with a fixed catch

so soon as the strain on the ropes is relaxed, and thus hold the

shutters steady without any aid from the attendant. The pulling of a

rope by drawing the segments close to the wheel releases the catch,

and consequently enables the attendant to return any shutter to its

original position.

Lieutenant-Colonel John Macdonald, F.R.S., who was already favourably

known by two Reports on the Diurnal Variation of the Magnetic

Needle observed at Fort Marlborough, Sumatra, and at St. Helena

(_Philosophical Transactions_ for 1796, p. 340, and for 1798, p. 397,

also “Eighth Encycl. Brit.,” Vol. XIV. p. 54), publishes (1808–1817)

two treatises upon his “Terrestrial Telegraph,” accompanied by an

extensive “Telegraphic Dictionary.” His contrivance consists of

thirteen boards or shutters arranged, like those of Edelcrantz, into

three vertical ranks representing hundreds, tens and units. Twelve of

the boards are capable of producing 4095 distinct combinations, and

the thirteenth or auxiliary board, which is mounted over the centre

of the apparatus, doubles that number. A flag or vane is added to the

hundred side to distinguish it in whatever direction it may be viewed,

and a ball sliding upon the staff which supports it affords the means

of again doubling the number, so that, on the whole, 16,380 distinct

signals can be obtained. He subsequently adopted a modification of the

contrivance introduced by Pasley in 1809, and also described a sort

of a “Symbolic Telegraph,” in which symbols like those of Dr. Hooke,

but representing numerals instead of alphabetical characters, were

dropped into open spaces denoting hundreds, tens and units. He further

suggested a useful flag telegraph for the navy and devised several

schemes for night telegraphs both for land and sea, one of which latter

consists of three sets of four lights each, with an additional or

_director_ light to each set, affording the same extensive powers as

his large board or shutter telegraph (_Phil. Mag._, Vols. LVII. pp.

88–93, and LVIII. pp. 99–103).

Major Charles Le Hardy communicates in 1808 to the London Society of

Arts, Vol. XXVI. pp. 20, 180–183, a novel contrivance consisting of a

large framework with nine radiating bars, representing the numerals

from 1 to 9, and four sets of other bars intersecting them so as to

form four concentric polygons, which latter express units, tens,

hundreds and thousands; thousands being shown by the innermost polygon.

Attached to the centre of the apparatus are four slender arms, carrying

four square boards, the lengths of these arms being such that the board

of one may, during the revolution of the arm, traverse the polygon

which represents thousands, that of another the polygon representing

hundreds, etc. By the addition of two other boards at the upper

corners, one of which denotes 10,000 and the other 20,000, or, when

displayed together, 30,000, the total range of the telegraph is from 1

to 39,999 (_Philosophical Magazine_, Vol. XXXIII. p. 343).

In the twenty-seventh volume of the _Transactions_ of the London

Society of Arts will be found the telegraphic devices of Knight

Spencer and of Lieutenant James Spratt (pp. 20, 163–169), while the

thirty-third volume contains (at pp. 23, 118–121) a description of

the contrivance of Alexander Law, intended for service on both sea

and land. These, it may be said, are the only additional telegraphic

methods worthy of note introduced up to the time when the English

Admiralty adopted the system proposed by Sir Home Popham in 1816. The

“anthropo-telegraph” of Knight Spencer, though laid before the Society

of Arts in 1808, had been used as early as 1805. It consisted merely of

two circular discs of wicker work, painted white with a black circle

in the centre, to be held in different positions with respect to each

other. The device of Lieutenant Spratt was more simple still, for it

consisted only in holding a kerchief in various positions; yet, simple

as it was, it served as a means of communication between vessels before

the battle of Trafalgar, and it was also successfully used to converse

between Spithead and the ramparts at Portsmouth, etc.

REFERENCES.--For Mr. Knight Spencer’s other papers, see the

_Philosophical Magazine_, Vols. XXXVI. p. 321, and XL. p. 206,

and, for different methods of telegraphing, see Mr. Macdonald’s

“Treatise,” published in 1817, as well as, more particularly,

Vols. XXVI, XXXIV, XXXV, XXXVI of the _Transactions of the

Society of Arts_; likewise Rohde’s “Système complet de Signaux

...” published 1835.

=A.D. 1808.=--Callender--Calendar (Elisha), of Boston, Mass.,

obtains, on Oct. 3, 1808, for his lightning rod, an American patent,

which latter is the first one in the line of electricity issued by the

United States.

REFERENCES.--H. L. Ellsworth’s “Digest of Patents,” Washington,

1840, p. 234; Edmund Burke, “A List of Patents,” Washington,

1847, p. 185; “List of United States Patents,” Washington, 1872,

p. 67.

=A.D. 1808.=--Bucholz (Christoph--Christian--Friedrich), distinguished

German chemist, receives his diploma as a physician at Rinteln, prior

to graduating at the Erfurt University, and publishes “Ueber die

Chimischen ... metallen,” giving a description of the chain bearing his

name. The latter was the result of experiments made by him to prove

that the electricity in the pile results from the oxidation of one of

the metals and also to establish a comparison between the quantity of

electricity obtained and the amount of oxygen absorbed by the one metal.

REFERENCES.--“Biographie Universelle,” Bruxelles, 1843–1847,

Vol. III. p. 227; A. F. Gehlen, _Jour. für Chem. und Phys._,

Vol. V; L. Figuier, “Exp. et Hist.,” Paris, 1857, Vol. IV. p.

426; “La Grande Encyclopédie,” Vol. VIII. p. 315, and also the

letter of J. B. Van Mons to Bucholz, Brussels, 1810.

=A.D. 1808.=--Amoretti (Carlo), Italian naturalist, who was allowed

(1772) to withdraw from the order of St. Augustine that he might

devote himself exclusively to scientific researches, gives, in his

“Della rabdomanzia ossia elettrometria,” a complete history of the

divining rod, and treats also therein of animal magnetism, etc. His

investigations of the electric polarity of precious stones show, among

other results, that the diamond, the garnet and the amethyst are - E,

while the sapphire is + E.

REFERENCES.--For a further account of the _Virgula Divina_, or

divining rod (_baguette divinatoire_), see the “Gentleman’s

Magazine” for 1751, Vol. XXI; also the notes at foot of pp.

91–106 of Baron Karl Von Reichenbach’s “Physico-Physiologicæ

Researches,” translated by Dr. John Ashburner, London, 1851.

In the latter, reference is made to Pierre Le Lorrain de

Vallemont’s “La Physique Occulte,” etc. (1693), to a work

written by Count J. de Tristan, to the “Mémoire,” etc., of

Tardy de Montravel (1781) and to Pierre Thouvenel’s “Mémoires,”

etc., the last named bearing the Paris-London imprint of

1781–1784, and attempting to show relations existing between

the rod and electricity and magnetism. Allusion is likewise

made in the afore-named work to the translation by Dr. Hutton

(1803) of Jean Etienne Montucla’s (1778) improvement of Jacques

Ozanam’s “Récréations Mathématiques et Physiques,” originally

built upon Leurechon’s “Récréations Mathématiques,” and first

published in Paris during the year 1724. For Reichenbach, see

“Le Cosmos,” Nos. 703–705 for July 16, 23 and 30, 1898; “Cat.

Sc. Pap. Roy. Soc.,” Vol. I. pp. 139–140; Vol. VIII. pp. 720,

721. Besides the above, reference should be had to the lecture

of Prof. Rossiter W. Raymond before the Philadelphia Electrical

Exhibition of 1884, and to the article in Paris _Cosmos_ of Jan.

3, 1891, which alludes to the works of P. Lebrun (1702), Albert

Fortis (1802), Dr. Charpignon (1848), Abbé Chevalier (1853),

and M. E. Chevreul “De la baguette ...” (1854). Consult also,

Eusebe Salverte, “The Philosophy of Magic.,” Vol. II. chap. xi.

speaking of Pryce’s “Mineralogia Cornubiensis” (1778); Theod.

Kirchmaier, “De Virgula divinatrice,” 1678; F. Soave, (_Opus.

Scelti_, III. p. 253), 1780; F. M. Stella (_Opus. Scelti_, XIII.

p. 427), 1790; G. B. San Martino (_Opus. Scelti_, XVII. p. 243),

1794; L. Sementini, “Pensieri e Sperimenti ...” 1811; A. M.

Vassalli-Eandi (_Opus. Scelti_, XIX. pp. 215, etc.); Kiesser,

_Archiv._, Vol. IV. p. 62; at Vol. I. p. 265, of Blavatsky’s

“Isis Unveiled”; “Biographie Générale,” Vol. II. pp. 290, 291;

“Roy. Soc. Catal. of Sc. Papers,” Vol. I. p. 58.

=A.D. 1808.=--Lebouvier-Desmortiers (Urbain René Thomas), French

writer, who had called attention to the danger attending the bodily

application of the galvanic fluid, through the _Journal de Physique_ of

1801 (p. 467), transmits another Mémoire to the same publication upon

an improved electrical (_briquet_) tinder box.

The cylinder, which had previously been made of copper, he constructed

of glass as illustrated by Delaunay at Plate IX. fig. 105, of his

“Manuel,” etc., Paris, 1809. With the new contrivance he was enabled

to exert considerable force upon the piston, and it was generally

necessary to push the latter suddenly in order to so compress the air

as to light the (_amadou_) spunk attached to the lower portion of

the cylinder.

REFERENCES.--See his “Examen des principaux systèmes ...”

Paris, 1813; J. C. Poggendorff, _Biogr. Liter. Hand._ ...

Vol. I. p. 1399; Larousse, _Dict. Univ._, Vol. X. p. 290;

_Journal de Médecine_, Vol. XXVI. pp. 298–303; _Catal. Sc. Pap.

Roy. Soc._, Vol. III. p. 910; C. H. Wilkinson, “Elements of

Galvanism,” London, 1804, Vol. I. p. 461; V. Delaunay, “Manuel

de l’Electricité,” Paris, 1809, pp. 151–153; Detienne, “De

l’électricité de pression” (_Journal de Physique_, 1777, Vol.

IX).

=A.D. 1809.=--Krafft (Wolfgang Ludwig), Professor of Experimental

Philosophy in the Imperial Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg is the

author of “Uber ein hypothet ...” wherein is given the result of his

investigations of the phenomena of terrestrial magnetism.

Comparing Biot’s examination of the dip observations previously made

by Humboldt, Krafft simplified the former’s conclusions, showing that

if we measure the latitude from the magnetic equator, the tangent of

the dip is double the tangent of such latitude, or, as he expresses it:

“If we suppose a circle circumscribed about the earth, having the two

extremities of the magnetic axis for its poles, and if we consider this

circle as a magnetic equator, the tangent of the dip of the needle,

in any magnetic latitude, will be equal to double the tangent of this

latitude.”

Krafft gave a complete theory of the _electrophorus_ in the first

part of the 1778 “Acta Acad. Petrop.,” which latter also contains

his experiments with Canton’s phosphorus and his observations on the

aurora of February 6–17 of the same year. The results of many of his

other investigations are to be found in Part XI of the work mentioned

as well as in Vols. XV, XVII and XIX of the “Novi Commentarii Academiæ

Petropolitanæ.”

=A.D. 1809.=--Pinkerton (John), gives in his “Voyages and Travels,”

published at London (Vol. IV. pp. 1–76) a reprint of the rare volume

entitled “Account of Paris at the close of the Seventeenth Century,”

by Martin Lister, M.D., wherein are detailed several surprisingly

interesting experiments made by Mr. Butterfield with his wonderful

collection of loadstones. It is therein stated that one of these

loadstones, when unshod, weighed less than a dram and would suspend a

dram and a half, but when shod would attract 144 drams of iron, whilst

another of the loadstones, weighing 65 grains, attracted 14 ounces, or

140 times its own weight; another would work through a wall eighteen

inches in thickness, etc. etc.

=A.D. 1809.=--Children (John George), an English scientist to whom

reference has already been made, more particularly under Cruikshanks,

A.D. 1800, communicates to the _Philosophical Transactions_, “An

account of some experiments performed with a view to ascertain the

most advantageous method of constructing a voltaic apparatus for the

purposes of chemical research.” This paper appears also in Vol. XXXIV

of the _Philosophical Magazine_.

Four years later (1813) he publishes a description of his magnificent

galvanic battery, the largest ever constructed on the plan suggested

by Dr. Wollaston. This consisted of twenty pairs of copper and zinc

plates, each six feet long and two feet eight inches wide, the

united capacities of the cells being 945 gallons. With this battery

he confirmed Davy’s observation that “intensity increases with the

number (of plates) and the quantity of the electricity with the extent

of surface.” It is reported that, when in full action, the battery

rendered a platinum wire five feet six inches long and ¹¹⁄₁₀₀ of

an inch in diameter red-hot throughout so as to be visible in full

daylight; that eight feet six inches of platinum wire ⁴⁴⁄₁₀₀ of an inch

in diameter were easily heated red; that a bar of platinum one-sixth of

an inch square and two and a quarter inches long was heated red-hot and

fused at the end; and that a round bar of the same metal, ²⁷⁶⁄₁₀₀₀ of

an inch in diameter and two and a half inches long, was heated bright

red throughout.

The result of many other investigations which he also made in 1813 and

during 1815 showed that metallic wires (eight inches long and ¹⁄₃₀ of

an inch diameter) became red-hot in the following order: platinum,

iron, copper, gold, zinc, silver; and he deduced that their conducting

power was in the inverse order, silver conducting best and platinum

least. Tin and lead fused immediately at the point of contact, and the

oxides of tungsten, uranium, cerium, titanium, iridium and molybdenum

were also fused. An opening made with a saw across an iron wire having

been filled with diamond powder, the diamond was liquefied and the

contiguous iron became steel. (See the Pepys entry at A.D.

1802.)

REFERENCES.--For Children’s other experiments, consult “_Phil.

Mag._,” Vol. XLII. p. 144; Vol. XLVI. pp. 409–415; _Phil.

Trans._ for 1815, pp. 368–370, also Dr. Wm. Henry’s “Elem. of

Exper. Chem.,” London, 1823, Vol. I. pp. 168–174; Dr. Thomas

Thomson, “Outline of the Sciences,” London, 1830, pp. 524–526;

Louis Figuier, “Expos. et Hist. ...” Paris, 1857, Vol. IV. pp.

389–390; Becquerel, Vol. I. p. 52; “Encycl. Metrop.,” Vol.

IV. pp. 179, 222; Gmelin’s “Chemistry,” Vol. I. p. 424; “Cat.

Sc. Papers Roy. Soc.,” Vol. I. p. 317; Vol. II. p. 26; “Bibl.

Britan.,” Vol. XLIII, 1810, p. 67 and Vol. I of the N.S. for

1816, p. 109.

=A.D. 1809–1810.=--Oken (Lorenz)--originally Lorenz

Ockenfuss--celebrated German naturalist, while occupying the post

of Extraordinary Professor of Medicine at the University of Jena,

publishes the great work “Lehrbuch der Naturphilosophie,” which was

translated into English by Dr. A. Tulk and published in London,

during 1847, by the Royal Society, under the title of “Elements of

Physico-Philosophy.”

This work, says his biographer in the “English Cyclopædia” (Vol. IV.

p. 557), takes the widest possible view of natural science: it is

interesting as a document in the history of a great mental movement and

contains the germs of those principles which are now regarded as the

secure generalization of well-observed facts.

From the epitome of the work given in the “Encyclopædia Britannica,”

the following is extracted: “Polarity is the first force which appears

in the world.... Galvanism is the principle of life ... the vital force

... the galvanic process is one with the vital process.... There is no

other vital force than the galvanic polarity.”

According to Dr. Richard Owen, Lorenz Oken contends that organism

is galvanism residing in a thoroughly homogeneous mass. A galvanic

pile, pounded into atoms, must become alive. In this manner, nature

brings forth organic bodies. The basis of electricity is the air; of

magnetism, metal; of chemism (the name he gives to the influence that

produces chemical combination), salts. The basis of galvanism, in

like manner, is the organic mass. Accordingly, whatever is organic is

galvanic; whatever is alive is galvanic. Life, organism, galvanism,

are one. Life is the vital process; the vital process is an organic

or galvanic process. Galvanism is the basis of all the processes of

the organic world.... God did not make man out of nothing, but took

an elemental body then existing, an earth-clod or carbon, moulded it

into form, thus making use of water, and breathed into it life, viz.

air, whereby galvanism or the vital process arose.... Organization

is produced by the co-operating process of light and heat. The ether

imparts the substance, the heat the form, the light the life....

The life of an inorganic body is a threefold action of the three

terrestrial elements, in which three processes galvanism consists. The

nutrient process is magnetic, present and entire in every part of the

body, and wheresoever it is withdrawn there is death.... These three

processes constitute the galvanic process. Thus the galvanic circle

is complete, and motion is the manipulation of galvanism. The process

of motion is synonymous with the galvanic process--this is the vital

process.

REFERENCES.--The extended biography of Lorenz Oken, embracing

a list of his chief works and original essays at pp. 498–503,

Vol. XVI of the Eighth “Encycl. Britan.”; Dr. William Whewell’s

“History of the Inductive Sciences,” 1859, Vol. II. p. 477;

“Hist. des Sciences,” par F. L. M. Maupied, Paris, 1847, Vol.

II. pp. 466–514.

=A.D. 1809.=--Luc (Jean André de), celebrated natural philosopher

of Swiss extraction (though from 1773 until his death in 1817, a

resident of England, where he became reader to Queen Charlotte, the

consort of George III), transmits to the Royal Society a long paper

treating of the separation of the chemical from the electrical effects

of the pile, with a description of the electric column and aerial

electroscope.

In this communication, says Dr. Young, he advanced opinions so little

in unison with the latest discoveries of the day, especially with

those of the President of the Royal Society, that the Council probably

thought it would be either encouraging error or leading to controversy

to admit them into the _Philosophical Transactions_. He had,

indeed, on other occasions shown somewhat too much scepticism in the

rejection of new facts; and he had never been convinced even of Mr.

Cavendish’s all-important discovery of the composition of water.

The paper was afterwards published in _Nicholson’s Journal_ (Vol.

XXVI), and the dry column described in it was constructed by various

experimental philosophers. It exhibited a continual vibrating motion,

made sensible by the sound of a little bell, which was struck by the

pendulum at each alternation; and during many months the vibration was

more or less rapid, according to circumstances affecting the column.

This dry column consists of discs of Dutch gilt paper, alternated

with similar discs of laminated zinc, so arranged that the order of

succession will be maintained throughout. When sufficiently dry these

are piled upon each other, the gilt side of the paper being in contact

with the zinc, and all are pressed together in a glass tube by a brass

cap and screw connected at each end with a metallic wire. The column

presented by De Luc to the Royal Society consisted of 300 discs of zinc

and of 300 discs of gilt paper. It is said that, with a larger column,

the vibration of a brass ball suspended between two bells was so

continued as to maintain a perpetual ringing for over two years; that

with an apparatus comprising 20,000 groups of silver, zinc and double

discs of writing paper, sparks have been obtained, while a Leyden jar

was charged in ten minutes with sufficient electricity to produce

shocks and to fuse an inch of platinum wire of an inch in diameter; and

that a similar pile, in the Clarendon Laboratory at Oxford, rang ten

small bells continuously for over forty years.

In Vols. XXXV, XXXVI and XXXVII of the “Phil. Mag.,” and in Vols.

XXVII and XXVIII of “Nicholson’s Journal,” André de Luc shows how the

dry column can be used for determining the insulating qualities and

conducting power of bodies, it having been also employed as are aerial

electroscopes to indicate the electrical changes taking place in the

atmosphere. The other volumes of the same publications named below

contain additional papers upon electricity, galvanism, etc., while at

p. 392, Vol. L of the _Phil. Mag._ will be found an account of De

Luc’s life and principal works, the latter being likewise mentioned in

Vol. XXV of the “Biographie Universelle.”

REFERENCES.--B. M. Forster, “Description ... elec. col. ...

De Luc ...” London, 1810; _Phil. Mag._, Vol. XXXVII. p. 197;

J. D. Maycock, _Phil. Mag._, Vol. XLVIII. pp. 165, 255; L.

Configliachi, “Osservazioni sulle pile a secco”; M. Delezenne,

“Expériences sur les piles sèches”; _Bibl. Brit. Sci. et Arts_,

Vol. XLVII, 1811, pp. 3, 113, 213, 313; Vol. XLIX, 1812,

pp. 88–92 (Necrology of J. A. De Luc), Vol. L, 1812, p. 351

(“Nicholson’s Journal,” No. 126), also the “Bibl. Britan.” for

1812, Vol. L. pp. 279–290 (Nicholson’s _Journal_, April 1812),

for J. D. Maycock’s reply to De Luc’s objections concerning

voltaic plates (“Phil. Mag.,” Vol. XLVIII. pp. 165, 255);

Gmelin’s “Chemistry,” Vol. I. pp. 424–427; G. J. Singer’s

“Elements of Electricity” and William Sturgeon’s _Annals of

Electricity_, _passim_, as well as his “Researches,” Bury, 1850,

pp. 147, 199, 261; De la Rive’s “Treatise on Electricity,” Vol.

II. p. 852; _Annales de Chimie et de Physique_, Vol. II. pp.

79–82 for May 1816; Gilbert’s _Annalen_, Vol. XLIX; also Vols.

VII, 1801, to Vol. LXXIV, 1821, for various articles upon the

dry pile, etc.; G. Schübler, “Uber De Luc’s Elektr. saüle ...”

1813; Geo. Wilson’s “Life of Cavendish,” London, 1851, p. 66,

etc.; “Nicholson’s Journal,” Vols. XXI, XXII, XXXII, XXXIII,

XXXV; _Phil. Mag._, Vols. XLII, XLV, the last named containing,

at pp. 359–363, Mr. G. J. Singer’s paper on “The Electric Column

considered as ... first mover for Mechanical Purposes,” while

at pp. 466, 467 is the communication of Mr. Francis Ronalds on

De Luc’s electric column. The latter is also specially referred

to in Vols. XLIII. pp. 241, 363; XLVI. p. 11; XLVII. pp. 47,

48; XLVIII. pp. 165, 255; LVII. pp. 446, 447; while at p. 55 of

Vol. XLIX is a paper relative to a “combination of the electric

column, the thermometer, barometer and hygrometer in one

instrument, for electro-atmospherical researches.”

=A.D. 1809.=--Sömmering (Samuel Thomas von), German anatomist and

physiologist, first employs voltaic, or contact, electricity for the

transmission of telegraphic signals.

Both his original and perfected working instruments were constructed

between July 9 and August 6, 1809 (_Journal Franklin Institute_,

1859, Vols. XXXVII and XXXVIII; _Journal Society of Arts_, Vol. VII.

p. 235). The complete apparatus consists of thirty-five gold rods

placed into glass tubes starting from a reservoir of acidulated water

and connecting with thirty-five silk-covered wires, which are run

into thirty-five apertures of copper (corresponding with twenty-five

letters and ten figures) upon a wooden stand into each opening of

which the wires of the voltaic pile can be inserted. When the latter

are connected, the bubbles rising through the decomposition of the

water are made to enter the lettered glass receivers through which

the messages can be deciphered. On August 8, 1809, he was able to

transmit intelligence a distance of 1000 feet, and twenty days later

he presented his apparatus to the Bavarian Academy of Sciences (Fahie,

“Hist. of Electric Telegraphy,” p. 228).

Sömmering’s telegraph was carried by Dominique Jean Larrey, chief

surgeon of the French armies, to Paris, where it was delivered by him

to the French Academy of Sciences, Dec. 5, 1809, and Dr. Hamel states

that Biot, Carnot, Charles and Monge were appointed by that body to

report upon the new invention (_Journal of the Franklin Institute_

for 1859, Vol. XXXVIII. p. 398). In 1810 and 1811, Sömmering reduced

the number of wires in his apparatus to twenty-seven. These brass or

copper wires were first insulated with a covering of gum lac and then

with silk thread, after which they were united into a thread-covered

cable 1000 feet in length. The cable was in turn covered with heated

gum lac or with a ribbon plunged in a solution of the same substance.

The Russian Count Jeroslas Potocki took the new instrument to Vienna

and submitted it, July 1, 1811, to the Emperor Francis I, while another

model of the apparatus was sent to William Sömmering, then at Geneva,

where it was shown to De la Rive, Auguste Pictet and other scientists.

During March 1812 this instrument carried intelligence 10,000 feet, or

ten times the distance previously reached.

REFERENCES.--Dr. Hamel, Cooke’s reprint, pp. 7, 8. See

Sömmering’s own description of this, the first electro-chemical

telegraph, in “Der Elektrische,” etc., published by his son

William at Frankfort, 1863, or the translations at p. 751 of

Noad’s “Manual,” London, 1859, and at pp. 230–234 of Fahie’s

“Hist, of Elec. Tel.,” London, 1884; Dr. Hamel, in _Jour. Soc.

of Arts_, for 1859, p. 453, or the reprint of W. F. Cooke in

1859, Vol. VII. pp. 595–599 and 605–610; Du Moncel, “Exposé,”

etc., Vol. III; _Comptes Rendus_, Tome VII for 1838, p. 81;

“De Bow’s Review,” Vol. XXV. p. 551; Highton’s “Elec. Tel.,”

p. 39; Harris, “Galvanism,” p. 35; Sturgeon’s _Ann. of Elec._,

Vol. III, March 1839, pp. 447–448; “Turnbull, Electric Magn.

Tel.” “Denkschr. Münch. Akad. ...” for 1809 and 1810, alluding

to his first experimental instrument made in 1807; Schweigger,

_Journal_, II. pp. 217, 240 of Vol. XX for 1817; Poggendorff’s

_Annalen_, Vol. CVII. pp. 644–647; “Smithsonian Report” for

1878, pp. 269–271; _Journal of the Franklin Institute_ for 1851,

Vol. XXI. pp. 330–332; Prime’s “Life of Prof. Morse,” 1875, pp.

263–275; “Bibl. Britan.,” Vol. XLIX, 1812, p. 19; “Traité de

tél. sous-marine,” E. Wünschendorff, Paris, 1888.

=A.D. 1810.=--Prechtl (Johann Joseph), German mathematician and

chemist, director of the School of Arts and Navigation in Trieste,

also professor in the Vienna Polytechnic Institute, is the author of

several very interesting articles on electricity, magnetism, etc.,

which appeared in Gilbert’s _Ann. der Physik_ from Vol. XXXV for

1810, to Vol. LXVIII for 1821, as well as in Gehlen’s _Jour. für

Chemie, Physik und Mineralogie_, Vols. V-VII. According to Figuier

(“Expos, et Hist. ...” 1857, Vol. IV. p. 433) we owe to Prof. Prechtl a

still more lucid explanation of the theory of electric distribution and

equilibrium in the voltaic pile than was conveyed even by the learned

Prof. Jäger (A.D. 1802).

Of the many separate treatises which he wrote up to 1836, and which

are contained in the numerous publications cited below, the most

important, by far, is doubtless that treating of the fundamental state

of the magnetic phenomena of the electrical connecting wire and on

the transverse electrical charge (“Uber d. transversal-magnetismus

...”) which is to be found in Schweigger’s _Journal für die Chemie

und Physik_, Vol. XXXVI. pp. 399–410, and in Dr. Thomas Thomson’s

_Annals of Philosophy_, N.S., Article I. vol. iv. pp. 1–6 for

July 1822. Alluding to the last named, Mr. Sturgeon says (“Scientific

Researches,” Bury, 1850, p. 29) that an _attempt_ is made by M.

Prechtl to explain the manner in which the connecting wire acts upon

the needle, but that his diagrams and his mode of reasoning are too

complex to be entered into the “Researches.”

REFERENCES.--Poggendorff’s “Biograph.-Liter. ...” Vol. II. pp.

519, 520; Larousse, “Dict. Univ.,” Vol. XIII. p. 45; “Catal.

Sc. Papers Roy. Soc.,” Vol. V. pp. 3–5; Gehlen’s _Journal_,

Vols. VII. pp. 141–282; VIII. pp. 297–318; Gilbert’s _Annalen_,

Vols. XXXV, 1810, pp. 28–104; XLIV, 1813, pp. 108–111; LXVII,

1821, pp. 81–108, 221, 222, 259–276; LXVIII, 1821, pp. 104–106,

187–206; LXXVI, 1824, pp. 217–228; Brugnatelli’s “Giornale,”

Vol. III, 1810, pp. 477–486; Kastner, “Archiv. Natur.,” II,

1824, pp. 151–167; Wien, “Jahrb. Pol. Inst.,” Vol. XIV, 1829,

pp. 144–160, and Poggendorff’s _Annalen der Physik und Chemie_,

Vol. XV, 1829, pp. 223–238.

=A.D. 1810.=--The compiler of this “Bibliographical History” will

doubtless be pardoned for introducing here an additional mode of

“communicating intelligence” promptly at great distances. Reference

is made to the first germ of pneumatic telegraphy sown by the English

engineer, George Medhurst, during the year 1810.

The London _Telegraphic Journal_, which gives an extract from

the specification of Medhurst’s patent “for a new method of conveying

letters and goods with great certainty and rapidity by air,” states

that the process took practical form only in 1854, when Latimer

Clark laid down a one-and-a-half-inch lead pipe between the Electric

Telegraph Company’s central station, Lothbury, and the London Stock

Exchange. The system was extended in 1858 to Mincing Lane, and, two

years later, Varley introduced the use of compressed air, so that

messages were drawn one way by a vacuum, and propelled in the opposite

direction by a prenum, instead of employing a vacuum both ways, as

Latimer Clark had previously done. During the year 1865 the system,

then considerably modified, was introduced into Paris, and it was

also made use of, at about the same time, by the Messrs. Siemens, who

employed it between the Bourse and the telegraph station in the city

of Berlin.

=A.D. 1810.=--Jacopi (Joseph), Italian physician, anatomist and

physiologist (1774–1813), pupil of the famous Scarpa, makes known

through his “Elementi di Fisiologia e Notomia comparata” (“Eléments de

Physiologie et d’Anatomie comparée”), the results of his very extended

investigations of the electrical organs of the _torpedo_.

To him is due the first clear description of the electrical lobes

situated in the _torpedo’s_ brain and of its relation to the eighth

pair of nerves distributed throughout the hexagonal columns, which

latter received also from him a very extended notice in the above-named

work. The fifth ramification of nerves was first observed by Carus,

and the most valuable investigation relative to the fourth and last

important group of nerves directly connected with the electrical organs

was made by the celebrated Italian professor, Carlo Matteucci.

REFERENCES.--Larousse, “Dict. Univ.,” Vol. IX. p. 867; C.

Matteucci, “Traité des Phénomènes Electro-Phys.,” Paris, 1844,

pp. 283–318; Geoffroy St. Hilaire at A.D. 1803.

Another author, Delle Chiaje, likewise gave a description of

the rhomboidal sinus-shaped protuberance which he calls _lobo

pagliarino_ (straw-coloured lobe), and which he considers as

formed of one mass but does not admit its important connection

with the electrical organs.

=A.D. 1811.=--Poisson (Siméon Denis), a very able French scientist,

communicates to the “Institut des Mathématiques et Physiques” and

publishes at Paris under the caption “Traité de Mécanique,” his

analytical observations of the electric phenomena which, it has

been truly said, actually establish a new branch of, and is the

best elementary work extant upon, mathematical physics. One of his

biographers remarks that Poisson’s object was “to leave no branch

of physics unexplored by aid of the new and powerful methods of

investigation which a school, yet more modern than that of Lagrange and

Laplace, had added to the pure mathematics.”

As shown, notably by Sir David Brewster in his able article on

“Electricity” in the eighth “Encycl. Brit.” (Vol. VIII. p. 531), and by

Noad, in his “Manual” (London, 1859, pp. 15, 16):

“Poisson adopted as the basis of his investigations the theory of two

fluids, proposed by Symmer and Dufay, with such modifications and

additions as were suggested by the researches of Coulomb. He deduced

theorems for determining the distribution of the electric fluid on the

surfaces of two conducting spheres, when they are placed in contact

or at any given distance, the truth of which had been established

experimentally by Coulomb before the theorems themselves had been

investigated. On bodies of elongated forms, or those which have edges,

corners or points, it is shown as a consequence of the theory of two

fluids that the electric fluid accumulates in greater depths about the

edges, corners or points than in other places. Its expansive force,

being therefore greater at such parts than elsewhere, exceeds the

atmospheric pressure and escapes, while at other points of the surface

it is retained.”

In the latter connection Mary Somerville remarks:

“There can hardly be a doubt but that all the phenomena of magnetism,

like those of electricity, may be explained on the hypothesis of one

ethereal fluid, which is condensed or redundant in the positive pole,

and deficient in the negative; a theory that accords best with the

simplicity and general nature of the laws of creation; nevertheless,

Poisson has adopted the hypothesis of two extremely rare fluids,

pervading all the particles of iron, and incapable of leaving them.

Whether the particles of these fluids are coincident with the molecules

of the iron, or that they only fill the interstices between them, is

unknown and immaterial. But it is certain that the sum of all the

magnetic molecules, added to the sum of all the spaces between them,

whether occupied by matter or not, must be equal to the whole volume

of the magnetic body.... M. Poisson has proved that the result of the

action of all the magnetic elements of a magnetized body is a force

equivalent to the action of a very thin stratum covering the whole

surface of a body, and consisting of the two fluids--the austral and

the boreal, occupying different parts of it; in other words, the

attractions and repulsions externally exerted by a magnet are exactly

the same as if they proceeded from a very thin stratum of each fluid

occupying the surface only, both fluids being in equal quantities,

and so distributed that their total action upon all the points in the

interior of the body is equal to nothing. Since the resulting force is

the difference of the two polarities, its intensity must be greatly

inferior to that of either” (J. C. Wilcke at A.D. 1757, “Conn.

of the Phys. Sci.,” 1846, s. 30 pp. 308, 309).

The “Mémoires de l’Institut” for 1811 contain Poisson’s very able

papers showing the manner in which electricity is distributed on the

surfaces of bodies of various figures and the thickness of the stratum

of electricity existing throughout these bodies. Mrs. Somerville

further observes of work already cited (s. 28):

“Although the distribution of the electric fluid has employed the

eminent analytical talents of M. Poisson and M. Ivory, and though many

of their computed phenomena have been confirmed by observation, yet

recent experiments show that the subject is still involved in much

difficulty. Electricity is entirely confined to the surface of bodies;

or, if it does penetrate their substance, the depth is inappreciable;

so that the quantity bodies are capable of receiving does not follow

the proportion of their bulk, but depends principally upon the form

and extent of surface over which it is spread; thus the exterior may

be positively or negatively electric, while the interior is in a state

of perfect neutrality.” (Consult J. Farrar, “Elem. of Elect. Magn. and

Electro-Magn.,” 1826, pp. 50–56.)

In his treatment of the theories of magnetism, Brewster alludes

again to the masterly investigations of Poisson, who, says he,

appears to have been “the first to conceive the idea of absolute

magnetic measurement.” In a short but luminous article at the end of

the “Connaissance des Temps” for 1828, he describes the method for

obtaining the value of H[ symbol] in absolute measure. His first

and second “Mémoire sur la Théorie du Magnétisme” appeared during

1824–1825, at pp. 247, 488, Vol. V of the Transactions of the Paris

Royal Academy, and were closely followed (Vol. VI. p. 441) by his

Memoir on the theory of Magnetism in motion. _Translations_ of

these will be found at pp. 336–358, 373, Vol. I and pp. 328–330, Vol. V

of the _Edin. Jour. of Sci._ and at pp. 334, 335 of John Farrar’s

“Elem. of Elect. Magn. and Electro-Mag.,” all published during the year

1826.

Poisson’s theoretical prediction of magne-crystallic action is thus

alluded to by Dr. John Tyndall in his “Researches on Diamagnetism,”

etc., London, 1870, pp. 13 and 66, 67:

“In March 1851, Professor William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) drew attention

to an exceedingly remarkable instance of theoretic foresight on the

part of Poisson, with reference to the possibility of magne-crystallic

action.

“Poisson,” says Sir William, “in his mathematical theory of

magnetic induction founded on the hypothesis of magnetic fluids

(moving within the infinitely small magnetic elements), of which he

assumes magnetizable matter to be constituted, does not overlook

the possibility of those magnetic elements being non-spherical and

symmetrically arranged in crystalline matter, and he remarks that

a finite spherical portion of such a substance would, when in the

neighbourhood of a magnet, act differently according to the different

positions into which it might be turned with its centre tube fixed.

But (such a circumstance not having yet been observed), he excludes

the consideration of the structure which would lead to it from his

researches, and confines himself in his theory of magnetic induction

to the case of matter consisting either of spherical magnetic elements

or of non-symmetrically disposed elements of any forms. Now, however,

when a recent discovery of Plucker’s has established the very

circumstance, the observation of which was wanting to induce Poisson to

enter upon a full treatment of the subject, the importance of working

out a magnetical theory of magnetic induction is obvious.

“Sir William Thomson then proceeds to make the necessary ‘extension of

Poisson’s Mathematical Theory of Magnetic Induction,’ and he publishes

a striking quotation from the ‘Mémoires de l’Institut,’ 1821–1822,

Paris, 1826.”

REFERENCES.--Biography in “English Encycl.,” Vol. IV. p.

899; _Phil. Mag._ for 1851; Roy. Soc. Catal. of Sci. Papers,

Vol. IV. pp. 964–969; G. M. Racagni, “Sopra una Memoria ...”

1839; Johnson’s “Encycl.,” 1878, Vol. III. p. 227; eighth

“Britannica,” Vol. XV. p. 98; ninth “Britannica,” Vol. XV. pp.

241, 249; _Ann. de Chimie_ for Feb. 1824; “Le Globe,” No. 87;

Harris, “Magnetism,” p. 131; Whewell, “Hist. of the Inductive

Sciences,” 1859, Vol. II. pp. 43, 208, 209, 222, 223; Sir

William Thomson’s works, 1872; Thomas Thomson, “An Outline,”

etc., 1830, p. 351; _Mém. de l’Acad. des Sci._ for 1824–1826,

1838; _Soc. Philom._ for 1803, 1824–1826; Humboldt’s “Cosmos,”

London, 1849, Vol. I. pp. 104, 105, 130, 165–169; N. Bowditch,

“Of a mistake which exists in the calculation of M. Poisson

relative to the distribution of the electric matter upon the

surfaces of two globes, in Vol. XII of the “Mém. ... Sc. Math.

... de France”; _Mem. Amer. Acad._, O.S., Vol. IV. part i.

p. 307; Houzeau et Lancaster, “Bibl. Gén.,” Vol. II. p. 228.

Mention is made of Poisson’s principal writings, in Vol. XI. pp.

179–191 of M. Max Marie’s “Hist. des Sciences Mathém.,” Paris,

1888, but the complete list will be found in Vol. II of the

works of Arago.

=A.D. 1811.=--Schweigger (Johann Salomo Christoph), a chemist of Halle

(1779–1857), inserts at p. 240, Vol. II of his _Journal für die Chemie

und Physik_, the memoir of Sömmering, relative to his electro-chemical

telegraph, as well as an appendix thereto, wherein he points out the

difficulties likely to attend the employment of so many different

wires. He suggests the use of but two wires, and of two piles of

unequal power. With these, all desired characters could be transmitted,

through a preconcerted code regarding the meaning of such letters and

figures as would be represented by the weaker or the stronger pile, in

conjunction with the duration of the gas evolutions or the space of

time separating them. He also suggested, for an alarum, the use of a

pistol, by connecting a battery to the pile, in lieu of liberating an

alarm by means of accumulated gas as Sömmering had done.

Two months after Oersted’s great discovery, which was announced in July

1820, Schweigger read at Halle (September 16, 1820) and communicated

to the German _Literary Gazette_ (No. 296 for November 1820), a paper

relative to an important improvement made in his _galvano magnetic

indicator_. The latter, which had been described at pp. 206–208 of

Gehlen’s (1808) _Journal für Chemie_, was merely an electroscope,

employed to indicate the attraction and repulsion of ordinary

frictional electricity in lieu of a Coulomb balance, the improved

apparatus being the result of his discovery that, by coiling an

_insulated_ wire several times around a magnetic needle, the deflecting

power of the voltaic current increases with the number of turns (Kuhn,

“Ang. Elek.-Lehre,” p. 514).

Alluding to Schweigger’s multiplier, the Abbé Moigno says:

“A conducting wire twisted upon itself and forming one hundred turns

will, when traversed by the same current, produce an effect one hundred

times greater than a wire with a single turn: provided always that the

electric fluid pass through circumvolutions of the wire without passing

laterally from one contour to another” (_Cornhill Magazine_, Vol. II

for 1860, pp. 61, 64).

It was, however, shown by Dr. Seebeck that the power of multiplication

does not increase with the number of windings in the uniting wire, for

the resistance to transmission naturally increases with the length of

the wire, thus diminishing its conducting power.

To his new instrument Schweigger gave the name of _electro-magnetic

multiplier_ (_multiplicator_) or _galvanometer multiplier_, and it has

become the most important for indicating and measuring the strength of

the galvanic current.

Prof. W. B. Rogers says that Schweigger’s apparatus as improved by

Nobili (_Ital. Soc. Mem._, Vol. XX. p. 173) became indispensable in

the measurement of current electricity, and that through the later

improvements given it by Sir William Thomson (also by Du Bois Reymond),

it has been made one of the most perfect and delicate of all known

means of measuring force. Schweigger’s multipliers with improvements

made thereon by Oersted and Nobili are illustrated at p. 642, Vol. XXI

of the eighth “Ency. Britannica,” where reference is made to drawings

on a large scale shown at Plate 522, article “Thermo-Electricity,” of

the “Edinburgh Encyclopædia.”

According to a footnote, p. 273 of “Report Smithsonian Inst.” for

1878, Schweigger’s multiplier is alluded to in the “Additions to

Oersted’s Electroma-gnetic Experiments,” a memoir read at the

_Naturforschende Gesellschaft_ at Halle, September 16 and November

4, 1820. An abstract of this paper was published in the _Allgemeine

Literatur-Zeitung_ of Halle (4to), November 1820, No. 296, Vol.

III. col. 621–624, whilst the full memoir appeared in the _Journal

für Chemie und Physik_, 1821, Vol. XXXI. pp. 1–17; and “Additional

Remarks ...” by Dr. Schweigger, in the same volume, pp. 35–41. It is

further stated in the afore-mentioned note that:

“A galvanometer of somewhat different form, having a vertical helix

and employing an unmagnetized needle, was very shortly afterward

independently devised by Johann Christian Poggendorff, of Berlin;

and as he preceded Schweigger in publishing an account of it, he is

sometimes regarded as the original inventor. Schweigger designated his

device an ‘Electro-magnetic Multiplicator’; Poggendorff designated

his arrangement a ‘Galvano-magnetic Condensator.’ Prof. Oersted

remarks: ‘Immediately after the discovery of electro-magnetism, M.

Schweigger, professor at Halle, invented an apparatus admirably

adapted for exhibiting by means of the magnetic needle the feeblest

electric currents.... M. Poggendorff, a distinguished young savant,

of Berlin, constructed an electro-magnetic multiplier very shortly

after M. Schweigger, with which he made some striking experiments. M.

Poggendorff’s work having been cited in a book on electro-magnetism by

the celebrated M. Erman (published immediately after the discovery of

these phenomena), became known to several philosophers before that of

M. Schweigger’ (_Annales de Chimie et de Physique_, 1823, Vol.

XXII. pp. 358–360).

“The researches of Schweigger and Bart leave us little or no doubt

that the ancients were well acquainted with the mutual attraction of

iron and the lodestone, as well as with the positive and negative

properties of electricity, by whatever name they may have called it.

The reciprocal magnetic relations to the planetary orbs, which are all

magnets, was with them an accepted fact, and aerolites were not only

called by them magnetic stones, but used in the Mysteries for purposes

to which we now apply the magnet.”

REFERENCES.--“Isis Unveiled,” Vol. I. pp. 281, 282. See also

_Annales de Chimie et de Physique_, 1816, Vol. II. pp. 84, 86;

Thos. Thomson, “An Outline of the Sciences ...” London, 1830,

Chap. XV. p. 564; “Encycl. Brit.,” seventh edition, “Voltaic

Electricity,” p. 687; _Polytechnisches Centralblatt_; _Sc. Am.

Supp._, No. 404; Sturgeon’s “Scientific Researches,” Bury,

1850, p. 19; L. F. Kaemtz, _Phil. Mag._, Vol. LXII. p. 441;

Poggendorff, Vol. II. pp. 873–875; Du Moncel, “Exposé ...” Vol.

III; Whewell’s “Hist. of Ind. Sci.,” Vol. II. p. 251; “Abhandl.

d. Naturf. Gesellsch. zu Halle” for 1853–1856; Schweigger’s

_Journal für Chemie und Physik_, Vol. II. part iv. pp. 424–434;

Vol. X for 1814 and Vol. XXXVIII for 1823; “Cat. Sc. Papers

Roy. Soc.,” Vol. V. pp. 589–592; “Bibl. Britan.,” Vol. XVI,

N.S., 1821, p. 197; Larousse, Vol. XIV. pp. 386–387. _Edinburgh

Philosophical Journal_, July 1821, Vol. V. p. 113. For Seebeck,

see _Phil. Mag._, Vol. LXI, 1823, p. 146. For Poggendorff, see

“Cat. Sc. Pap. Roy. Soc.,” Vol. IV. pp. 952–956; Vol. VIII. pp.

638–640; “Bibl. Britan.,” Vol. XVIII, N.S., 1821, p. 195; Pogg.,

“Annalen,” Vol. CLX (biography).

In the editorship of Schweigger’s _Journal_, which followed

Gehlen’s _Journal_, Mr. J. S. C. Schweigger was assisted, from

1828, by Franz W. Schweigger-Seidel, who was the author of “Lit. d.

Math. Natur.,” published in 1828. (For the joint magnetic work of J.

S. C. Schweigger and Wilhelm Pfaff, see _Jour. f. Ch. u. Ph._,

Band X. heft i. for 1814.)

=A.D. 1811.=--Monsieur Dessaignes is first to establish a relation

between electricity and phosphorescence, as is shown in the extract

published in London from the Memoir which he had presented two years

before to the French Institute. The general view he takes is that

phosphorescence is produced by a particular fluid, which is set in

motion by light, by heat, by electricity, as well as by friction, and

that it is dissipated by overheating or by too long exposure to light.

It is asserted by Fahie (“Hist. of El. Tel.,” pp. xiv, 297) that it was

Dessaignes and not Seebeck who first discovered thermo-electricity.

“Dessaignes,” he says, “showed us how difference of temperature or

heat could produce electricity.” This was in 1815, or six years before

Seebeck, who is always credited with the observation (Bostock’s

“History of Galvanism,” London, 1818, p. 101). Many observations

bearing on _thermo-electricity_ had been made even long before

Dessaignes.... In 1759 Æpinus called attention to the same phenomena,

and pointed out that electricity of opposite kinds was developed at

opposite ends of the crystal (tourmaline). In 1760 Canton observed the

same properties in the topaz; and between 1789 and 1791 Haüy showed the

thermo-electric properties of various other substances, as mesotype,

prehnite, Iceland spar, and boracite.

REFERENCES.--Priestley’s “History of Electricity,” 1767, pp.

314–326. For Dessaignes’ other observations, see J. Farrar,

“Elem. of Elec., Mag. and Electro-Mag.,” 1826, p. 125, and

_Phil. Mag._, Vol. XLIV. p. 313. See also _Phil. Mag._, Vol.

XXXVIII. p. 3; _Journal des Mines_, Vol. XXVII. p. 213;

Poggendorff, Vol. I. p. 563; “Cat. Sci. Pap. Roy. Soc.,” Vol.

II. pp. 272, 273; Chap. III. s. 3 of the “Electricity” article

of the “Ency. Britannica.”

=A.D. 1811.=--The idea of placing a lightning conductor through the

body of a ship is first suggested by Mr. Benjamin Cook, of Birmingham,

and is carried out by Mr. William Snow Harris, of Plymouth. Mr. William

Sturgeon, who mentions the fact (“Lectures of Electricity,” London,

1842, p. 208), adds that Mr. Harris “has formed the conductors into

strips of copper, which are inserted in grooves in the after side of

the masts from top to bottom and through the keelson to the sea. In

one of the smaller men-of-war Mr. Harris carried his mizzen conductor

through the powder magazine!!! The evils attending these conductors

arise principally from lateral explosions and electro-magnetic

influence.”

REFERENCES.--For Wm. Sturgeon, consult _Phil. Mag._, Vol. XI,

1832, pp. 195, 270, 324; “Cat. Sc. Papers Roy. Soc.,” Vol. V.

pp. 876–878, Vol. VI. p. 758 and Vol. VIII. p. 1042.

=A.D. 1811–1812.=--Schübler (Gustav), Professor, of Tübingen,

is the first to present a connected series of observations upon the

electricity of the air, which were made at Stuttgart, during all

kinds of weather and at regular daily intervals, between May 1811

and June 1812. Other observations previously carried on by Schübler,

during 1805 and subsequent years, at Ellvanguen and Stuttgart are

detailed at pp. 579, 580, Vol. VIII--and are also alluded to in article

“Meteorology”--of the eighth “Britannica.”

While De Lor was the first to observe, in 1752, the existence of

electricity in the atmosphere, even when no lightning is visible,

Schübler made the earliest known report upon the daily periodicity

of the intensity of the electricity. The annual periodicity had been

previously demonstrated by G. B. Beccaria, who published at Turin two

able treatises on the subject during 1769 and 1775.

The origin of atmospheric electricity was, by Lavoisier, Laplace and

Sir H. Davy, attributed in great part to the constant combustion

taking place upon the earth’s surface. Volta and Saussure believed it

to arise from the process of evaporation, while Pouillet pointed out

the influence of the processes of vegetation; Reich, however, showed

that as neither developed electricity they could not produce it in

the atmosphere. Peltier advanced the theory that mere evaporation

without chemical action is not enough, and the experiments of Faraday

and Armstrong showed that evaporation without friction is likewise

insufficient. These theories are treated of in “Gaea-Natur und Leben,”

Köln and Leipzig, 1873, p. 322, and in Lardner’s “Popular Lectures,”

1859, Vol. II. pp. 149–160. The last named gives tables of many

observations, and reports, among other matters, that the series of

observations on the diurnal changes of atmospheric electricity which

Schübler made, in 1811–1812, were repeated and confirmed at Paris in

1830 by M. Arago. During the month of March 1811 Schübler found that

the mean time of the morning maximum was eight hours thirty minutes,

and M. Arago ascertained the mean time for the same month to be eight

hours forty-eight minutes.

REFERENCES.--_Edin. Jour. of Sci._, new series, Vol. III;

_Biblio. Univers._, Vol. XLII; _Annales de Ch. et de Ph._

for 1816, Vol. II. p. 85; “Jahrbuch der Ch. und Ph.,” 1829;

Gilbert’s _Annalen_, Vols. XXXIX, XLIX, LI; Schweigger’s

_Journal_, Vols. II. p. 377; III. p. 133; VIII. pp. 21, 22, 25,

26, 28, 29; IX. pp. 348, 350, 351; XV. p. 130; XIX. pp. 1 and

11; XXV. p. 249; XXXI. p. 39; _Jour. de Phys._, Vol. LXXV. p.

177; Vol. LXXXIII. p. 184; “Lehrbuch der Meteor,” L. F. Kaemtz,

Halle, 1832, Vol. I. p. 337; Vol. II. pp. 411, 414; “Annual of

Sc. Disc.” for 1862, pp. 99–103; L. Palmieri in _Lum. Elec._,

Paris, Oct. 31, 1891, pp. 209–212; “Sci. Pap. Roy. Soc.,” Vol.

V. pp. 559–562; Vol. VI. p. 755; “Bibl. Britan.,” Vol. II,

N.S. for 1816 pp. 93–113 (atmosph. electricity); Poggendorff,

Vol. II. p. 853; Report on Atmospheric Electricity by F. J. F.

Duprez, 1858, Part III. chap. ii. pp. 363–368; Foggo, p. 124,

Vol. IV of _Edin. Jour. Sci._; J. J. Hemmer’s observations at

Mannheim from 1783 to 1787, Lehrbuch, etc., Vol. II. p. 418, and

the recorded investigations of De Luc, Girtannier, Mayer, Monge,

Pouillet, Becquerel, De Tressan, Arago, De Saussure, Delezenne,

Helwig and Kaemtz.

=A.D. 1811.=--In the first volume of his “Cosmos” (London, 1849,

Vol. I. pp. 240–241) Humboldt speaks of _islands of eruption_,

or marine volcanoes, which can properly be classed among electrical

phenomena, and alludes to the one observed on the 13th of June 1811 by

Captain Tillard (Tilland), and to which he gave the name “Sabrina.”

This volcano, which had previously appeared June 11, 1638 and December

31, 1719, off the island of St. Michael, in the Azores, is thus

described in the _Philosophical Transactions_:

“Imagine,” says Captain Tillard, “an immense body of smoke rising from

the sea, the surface of which was marked by the silver rippling of

the waves occasioned by the slight and steady breezes incidental to

those climates in summer. In a quiescent state, it had the appearance

of a circular cloud, revolving on the water like a horizontal wheel,

in various and irregular involutions, expanding itself gradually on

the lee side, when suddenly a column of the blackest cinders, ashes,

and stones, would shoot up in the form of a spire, rapidly succeeded

by others, each acquiring greater velocity and breaking into various

branches resembling a group of pines; these again forming themselves

into festoons of white feathery smoke. During these bursts, the most

vivid flashes of lightning continually issued from the densest portion

of the volcano, and the columns rolled off in large masses of fleecy

clouds, gradually expanding themselves before the wind, in a direction

nearly horizontal, and drawing up a quantity of water spouts, which

formed a striking addition to the scene. In less than an hour, a peak

was visible, and, in three hours from the time of our arrival, the

volcano then being four hours old, a crater was formed twenty feet

high, and from four to five hundred feet in diameter. The eruptions

were attended by a noise like the firing of cannon and musketry mixed;

as also with shocks of earthquakes sufficient to throw down a large

part of the cliff on which we stood.” (See description of the sudden

appearance of the Island of St. Michael, etc., in Lectures by Dr.

Webster, Professor of Chemistry and Mineralogy at Harvard College,

Boston, 1822.)

=A.D. 1811–1818.=--Ure (Andrew), M.D., F.R.S., the first astronomer

appointed to the Glasgow Observatory and the author of a Dictionary of

Chemistry (the undisputed standard until the appearance of a similar

work by Henry Watts), makes known the result of his electrical

experiments in the same line as those made by Aldini (A.D. 1793) upon

the body of a recently executed criminal. Noad, who gives a greatly

detailed account of the investigations, at pp. 338–341 of his “Manual,”

remarks that they “serve to convey a tolerably accurate idea of the

wonderful physiological effects of the electrical agent, and will be

impressive from their conveying the most terrific expressions of human

passion and human agony.”

Dr. Ure is the inventor of an improved eudiometer, for detonating

or exploding gases by means of an electric shock or spark, which is

fully described and illustrated in the “Electricity” article of the

“Britannica.”

REFERENCES.--De la Rive, “Treatise on Electricity,” Vol. II.

pp. 489–490, also “Encycl. Metropol.,” Vol. IV (Galv.), p. 197.

Another report of Ure’s experiments appears at pp. 634, 635 of

the “Encycl. Brit.,” article on “Voltaic Electricity,” also in

No. 12 of the _Journal Sci. and Arts_, and at p. 56, Vol. LIII

of the _Philosophical Magazine_.

=A.D. 1812.=--Through the _New York Columbian_, of July 1812, Mr.

Christopher Colles informs the public that the operation of his new

telegraphs “will be shown from the top of the Custom House on Tuesdays,

Thursdays and Saturdays from four to six o’clock in the afternoon.”

In an explanatory pamphlet, he states that “eighty-four letters can

be exhibited by this machine in five minutes, to the distance of one

telegraphic station averaged at ten miles, and by the same proportion a

distance of 2600 miles in fifteen minutes, twenty-eight seconds.”

James D. Reid, who mentions this fact at p. 5 of his “Telegraph in

America,” says that the above was nothing but the already well-known

European semaphore or visual signal, and that Colles worked his

“machine” between New York and Sandy Hook for several years.

=A.D. 1812.=--On April 1 and 15, May 13 and June 17, Mr. M. Donovan,

secretary of the Kirwanian Society of Dublin, reads before the latter

body a long communication “On the Inadequacy of the Hypothesis

at Present Received to Account for (explain) the Phenomena of

Electricity,” which was afterward ably criticized by J. A. de Luc,

as will be seen by reference to the _Philosophical Magazine_, Vols.

XLV. pp. 97, 200, 329–332, and XLVI. pp. 13, 14. In his treatment of

Eeles’ hypothesis (see A.D. 1755) Donovan gives some attention to the

designed suppression by Priestley of Eeles’ valuable papers from the

_Philosophical Transactions_.

The above communication was followed by still more valuable and much

longer ones, read by Mr. Donovan before the same society, February 22,

March 8, and March 22, 1815, entitled “On the Origin, Progress and

Present State of Galvanism ... and Inadequacy of the Hypotheses to

Explain Its Phenomena ...” a modified form of which obtained for its

author the prize of the Irish Royal Society.

The sketch of the history of galvanism is divided into three periods.

The first treats of the discoveries attaching to muscular contraction,

and alludes to the observations of Sulzer, Galvani, Fabbroni,

Humboldt, Pfaff, Fontana, Valli, Monro, Vassalli-Eandi, Fowler, Smuck,

Marsigli, Grapengieser, Giulio, Rossi, Aldini and Wells. The second

period reviews the gradual development of the physical and chemical

power of combined galvanic arrangements, beginning with Nicholson and

Carlisle, and refers to the many conclusions reached by Cruikshanks,

Henry, Haldane, Ritter, Robertson, Brugnatelli, Fourcroy, Vauquelin,

Thénard, Lehot, Trommsdorff, Simon, Helwige (Major Helvig), Twast,

Bourguet, Erman, Grapengieser, Wollaston, Davy, Pfaff, Van Marum,

Biot, Cuvier, Desormes, Bostock, Cuthbertson, Aldini, Lagrave, Jordan,

Ritter and Wilkinson. The third period commences with the well-known

generalizations of the chemical effects of galvanism made by Hisinger

and Berzelius; their experiments on the invisible transfer of elements

at a distance, and the explanation given by Grotthus of the invisible

transfer of the elements of water. Following this, Donovan alludes

to the announced decomposition of muriatic acid by W. Peel, Francis

Pacchiani, and others, as well as the discovery of the source of

mistakes in the Galvani Society investigations by Pfaff, Biot, Thénard

and Davy; after which reference is made to the special observations

of Sylvester, Grotthus, Wilson, Erman, Davy, Pontin, Gay-Lussac and

Thénard, Children, De Luc, Singer, Murray and Maycock.

On the 5th of April 1815, Donovan reviewed the hypotheses of Volta and

Fabbroni, as well as of the British philosophers Wollaston, Bostock

and Davy, and, on the 19th of the same month, he read an additional

paper on the inadequacy of the galvanic hypothesis, having previously

(Dec. 28, 1814, and Jan. 11, 1815) presented to the Kirwanian Society a

communication relative to a new theory of Galvanism.

REFERENCES.--_Phil. Mag._, Vols. XXXIX. p. 396; XLIV. pp.

334, 401; XLV. pp. 154, 222, 308, 381; XLVI. p. 401; XLVII.

pp. 167, 204; also Vol. XXXVII. pp. 227, 245, on Mr. Davy’s

erroneous hypothesis of electro-chemical affinity, and Vols.

XXII and XXIII of the _Trans. Royal Irish Academy_ for Mr.

Donovan’s papers relating to improvements in the construction of

galvanometers, on galvanometric deflections, etc. etc.

=A.D. 1812.=--Zamboni (Giuseppe), Italian physicist, Professor of

Natural Philosophy in the Verona Lyceum, makes known through his

“_Della pila elettrica a secco_” an improved method of constructing dry

piles. He dispenses entirely with the zinc plates of De Luc and employs

only discs of paper having one side tinned and the other coated with a

thin layer of black oxide of manganese pulverized in a mixture of flour

and milk (“Note historique sur les piles sèches,” _Annales de Chimie et

de Physique_, Vol. XI. p. 190).

His pile terminates in metallic plates, compressing the paper discs

by means of silk ligatures, and the column is insulated by giving it

a coating of either sulphur or shellac. In this apparatus the tinned

surface is the positive element, the negative being the oxide of

manganese, which replaces M. De Luc’s Dutch gilt paper. In the later

forms of Zamboni’s pile the discs were formed of gilt and silvered

paper pasted back to back. William Sturgeon remarks (“Scientific

Researches,” Bury, 1850, p. 200) that the Zamboni piles are those which

have been the most securely protected against the action of the ambient

air and which alone have maintained their original electrical intensity.

REFERENCES.--Larousse, “Dict. Univ.,” Vol. XV. p. 1452; K.

F. Anton Von Schreibers in Gilbert’s _Annalen_, LV; Placidus

Heinrich (Schweigger’s _Journal_, XV); Gustav Schübler, “Uber

Zamboni’s Trockne Säule,” 1815–1816; G. F. Parrot (Gilbert’s

_Annalen_, LV); K. C. F. Jäger in Gilbert’s _Annalen_, Vol. XLIX

for 1815, pp. 47–66; De la Rive, “Treatise on Electricity,” Vol.

II. p. 852; A. M. Ampère, _Ann. de Chimie et de Phys._, XXIX;

John Farrar, “Elem. of Electricity,” etc., 1826, p. 179; Zamboni

and Ambrogio Fusinieri, _Ann. ... Reg. Lomb., Veneto_, Vols.

IV. pp. 128, 132; VI. pp. 31, 142, 143, 293; G. Resti-Ferrari,

“Elettroscopio ... del Zamboni”; _Ann. ... Reg. Lomb., Ven._,

Vols. II. p. 229; III. p. 290; “Verona Poligrafo” for 1831, p.

87; _Mem. Soc. Ital._, Vols. XXI, XXIII; _Mem. dell’ Istit.

Veneto_, Vol. II. pp. 239, 251; G. A. Majocchi, _Annali di

Fisica_, Vol. VIII. p. 14; “Comm. dell’ Ateneo di Brescia,”

1832, p. 38; Sturgeon’s “Researches,” Bury, 1850, pp. 147, 199,

etc., for observations of A. de la Rive and Francis Watkins;

_Phil. Mag._, Vol. XLV. pp. 67, 261; _Ann. Ch. et Phys._ for

May 1816, Vol. II. pp. 76, etc., 82–87, and _Bibl. Britan._,

Vol. LVII. p. 225; also Vol. LVIII. p. 111 of the O.S., Vol. II,

N.S. for 1816, p. 21 as well as Vol. XL. p. 190; “Bibl. Univ.,”

Bruxelles, 1831, Vol. XLVII. p. 183 (horloge électrique);

“Edin. New Phil. Journal,” 1829, Vol. XXI. p. 357. See likewise

the references at Hachette (A.D. 1803), Dyckhoff (A.D. 1804),

Maréchaux (A.D. 1806), De Luc (A.D. 1809); the illustration

and description of M. Palmieri’s dry pile in _Sci. Am. Supp._,

Nos. 512, 519, and the accounts of investigations made more

particularly by MM. Beetz, Belgrado, Burstyn, Crosse, Du Bois

Reymond, De la Rive, D’Arsonval, Desruelles, Edelmann, Faraday,

Gassiot, Gassner, Germain, Roul, Guérin, Haussman, Keiser,

Schübler, Minotto, Pollak, Riess, Schmidt, Trouvé, Wagner,

Watkins and Wolf.

=A.D. 1812.=--Schilling (Pawel Lwowitch), Baron (of Kannstadt),

attaché to the Russian Embassy in Munich, and who had been two years

before associated with S. T. Von Sömmering (Kuhn, p. 836), devises what

he calls his “sub-aqueous galvanic conducting cord”--a copper wire

insulated with a thin coating of india-rubber and varnish. This was

laid both underground and under the sea, and, it is asserted that, by

means of an arrangement of charcoal points, he was enabled to explode

powder mines across the Neva, near St. Petersburg, as well as also

across the Seine, during the occupation of Paris by the allied armies.

REFERENCES.--Hamel, “Bull. Acad. Petersb.,” II and IV; also Wm.

F. Cooke’s reprint, 1859, pp. 20–22; Fahie’s “History,” p. 309.

From the moment Schilling first saw the telegraph of Sömmering (Aug.

13, 1810) he made many experiments (Prime’s “Life of Morse,” p. 277)

with the view of introducing it into Russia and finally took a model of

it to St. Petersburg during the year 1812 (“Sc. Am. Suppl.,” No. 405).

Hamel states (at p. 41 of Cooke’s reprint) that one of his contrivances

was exhibited to the Emperor Alexander as early as 1825. Of this,

Dr. E. N. Dickerson, in his Henry Memorial Address before Princeton

College, gives the date as 1824. Be that as it may, it was only after

his return from China in 1832 (two years after Sömmering’s death)

that, following Ampère’s suggestion as to the availment of Oersted’s

discovery, he submitted the apparatus which established for him the

credit of having invented the electro-magnetic telegraph.

Many authors have erroneously described Schilling’s apparatus as

consisting of a number of platinum wires insulated and bound together

with a silken cord which put in motion thirty-six magnetic needles

placed vertically in the centre of the multiplier by means of a species

of key connecting with a galvanic pile. This account appeared at p.

43 of the “Journal des Travaux de l’Acad. de l’Industrie Française”

for March 1839. The fact is that he employed but one magnetic needle

and multiplier, with two leading wires, as proposed by Fechner, and

was enabled by means of a combination of the deflections of the needle

to the right and left to give all necessary signals for a complete

correspondence by changing the poles of the battery at the ends of

the wires. His call signal was given by a bell in connection with a

clockwork, released by the deflection of a magnet.

REFERENCES.--For a detailed explanation of the working of

Schilling’s telegraph, J. S. T. Gehler’s “Physikalisches

Wörterbuch” for 1838, Vol. IX. p. 111; Fahie’s “History,” pp.

310–313; “Sc. Am. Suppl.,” No. 405, p. 6467.

From the account of the telegraphic collection at the 1873 Exposition,

published by Dr. Edward Zetzsche in the “Austellungblatte” of the

Vienna “Neue Freie Presse,” the following is extracted: “Even after

Prof. Oersted, of Copenhagen, had observed the deviation of a magnetic

needle under the influence of the current, neither the proposition

of Ampère, at Paris, in 1820 (of employing thirty needles and sixty

wires) nor that of Fechner, at Leipzig, in 1829 (twenty-four needles

and forty-eight wires) gave any impulse to telegraphy. Only in 1832 did

the Russian Councillor of State, Baron Schilling de Kannstadt (who had

seen the telegraph of his friend Sömmering, and had made it known in

Russia), invent a new instrument with but five wires, which number he

subsequently reduced to one. In it, the movements of the needle were

rendered more perceptible by means of little discs of paper attached

to a silk thread, holding the needle in suspension. This telegraph, it

is true, was not put in application on a large scale, for Schilling

died in 1837, but, on the 23rd of Sept. 1835, he had already brought

out his apparatus at Bonn and at Frankfort-on-the-Main, where it was

seen amongst other persons by Prof. Muncke, who doubtless constructed a

similar one which he took with him to Heidelberg.”

It was only one year before his death that Schilling succeeded in

obtaining the support of the Russian Government for his telegraph,

and it was only after Muncke had shown it (March 6, 1836) to Wm.

Fothergill Cooke, then a student in medicine at Heidelberg, that the

latter produced his needle telegraph, which was followed by Cooke and

Wheatstone’s still more perfect instrument in 1837 (Prime’s “Life of

Morse,” pp. 265, 276). Some improvements in Schilling’s so-called

deflective telegraph had, in the meantime, been made by Gauss and Weber

at Göttingen, as well as by Steinheil at Munich.

Prior to his visiting Bonn (Meeting of Naturalists--Isis, Nog., 1836)

Schilling had taken the working model of his telegraph to Vienna, where

he made many experiments with it in conjunction with Baron Jacquin and

with Prof. Andreas von Ettinghausen. Upon his return home from Germany

in 1836, he declined invitations made him to bring his instruments to

England (Dr. Hamel’s St. Petersburg lecture on “The Telegraph and Baron

Paul Schilling”), whilst, by direction of the Russian Commission of

Inquiry, he set up an experimental telegraph in two chambers of the

Palace of the Admiralty connecting the apparatus by a long line over

ground and by a cable laid in the waters of the canal. The results

proved so satisfactory that in May 1837 the Emperor Nicholas ordered

a submarine line to be laid between St. Petersburg and Cronstadt.

Schilling’s death, on the 25th of July following, prevented, however,

the execution of the project.

REFERENCES.--Biography in _Sci. Am. Supp._, No. 547, p. 8737;

_Polytechnic Central Journal_, Nos. 31, 32 for 1838; _Lumière

Electrique_ for March 17, 1883; “Allg. Bauztg.,” 1837, No. 52,

p. 440; L. Turnbull, Electro. Magn. Tel. p. 223; (Hibbard’s

Ev. 31; Channing, Ev. 41); Poggendorff, Vol. II. p. 798;

_Annales Télégraphiques_ for November to December 1861, p. 670;

_Journal Soc. of Arts_ for July 22, 1859, p. 598; References

at Ronalds’ “Catalogue,” p. 457; Du Moncel, “Exposé,” Vol.

III. p. 8 and “Traité Théorique et Pratique du Tel. Elect.,”

Paris, 1864, p. 217; _Comptes Rendus_, Vol. VII for 1838, p. 82;

_Journal Franklin Inst._ for 1851, p. 60; H. F. E. Lenz, “Uber

die Praktische ... Galvanismus,” 1839; “Report of Smithsonian

Inst.,” 1898, pp. 224–225.

=A.D. 1812–1813.=--Morichini (Domenico Pini), eminent Italian

physician, is the first to announce that unmagnetized steel needles can

be rendered magnetic by making the focus of violet solar rays collected

through a lens pass repeatedly from the middle to one end of the

needle, without touching the other half (Zantedeschi, II. p. 214).

The long contention created by this announcement and the ingenious

experiments of Mrs. Somerville, together with the results obtained

by P. T. Riess and L. Moser, are detailed at p. 48 of Brewster’s

(1837) “Treatise on Magnetism.” At p. 12 of his article (Vol. XIV of

the eighth “Britannica”), Sir David Brewster states that Morichini’s

experiments were successfully repeated by both Dr. Carpi at Rome and

the Marquis Ridolfi at Florence; but M. d’Hombre Firmas, at Alais,

in France; Prof. Pietro Configliachi, of Pavia, and M. Berard, of

Montpelier, failed in obtaining decided effects from the violet rays.

In 1814 Morichini exhibited the actual experiment to Sir Humphry Davy,

and in 1817 Dr. Carpi showed it to Prof. Playfair. A few months later

Sir David Brewster met Davy at Geneva, and learned from him the fact

that he had paid the most diligent attention to one of Morichini’s

experiments, and that he had actually seen with his own eyes an

unmagnetized needle rendered magnetic by violet light. Then follow in

the same article the account of Dr. Carpi’s experiment as given to

Brewster by Prof. Playfair, also details of the investigations of Mrs.

Somerville, Mr. Christie, Sir William Snow Harris, Prof. Zantedeschi,

of MM. Baumgartner and Barlocci, as well as those of Riess and Moser

above alluded to.

REFERENCES.--“Elogio storico del Cavaliere D. Morichini” in

_Mem. della Soc. Ital._, Vol. XXVI. p. 3; Riess and Moser in

_Phil. Mag. or Annals_, Vol. VIII. p. 155, 1830 and in Edin.

_Trans._, Vol. X. p. 123; “Library of Useful Knowledge” (El.

Mag.), p. 97; _Zeitschrift_, Vol. I. p. 263; Noad, “Manual,” pp.

532, 533; the article of Col. George Gibbs in Silliman’s _Amer.

Jour. of Sci._, 1818, Vol. I. pp. 89, 90; _Annales de Chimie_,

Vol. XLII. p. 304; Brewster’s “Optics,” p. 92; also articles

“Optics,” p. 596, “Light,” p. 452 and “Electricity,” p. 569 of

the eighth “Britannica”; _Edin. Jour. of Sci._, No. 4, p. 225;

B. Gandolfi, “Antologia Romana,” 1797; Harris, “Rud. Mag.,”

Parts I, II. p. 69; _Phil. Trans._ for 1826, pp. 132, 219; D.

Olmstead, “Int. to Nat. Phil.,” 1835, Vol. II. p. 194. See also

Thomas Thomson’s “Outline of the Sci.,” p. 514, and Berzelius’

“Traité de Chimie,” Vol. I. p. 138 for Morichini’s observations

on galvanic energy; “Bibl. Brit.,” Vol. LII, 1813, p. 21; Vol.

LIII, 1813, p. 195; Vol. LIV, 1813, p. 171 (Experiments of G.

Babini in Florence); Vol. IV, N.S., 1817, pp. 1–8; Vol. V,

N.S., 1817, p. 167; Vol. VI, N.S., 1817, p. 81; Vol. XI, N.S.,

1819, p. 29 for the experiments of L. A. d’Hombre Firmas on

Morichini’s violet rays, whilst p. 174 of the same issue gives

J. Murray’s investigations as recorded in the “Phil. Mag.” for

April 1819.

Peter (Pietro) Configliachi, already named, was the successor of Volta

as Professor of Natural Philosophy at the Pavia University, and became

editor of the “Biblioteca Fisica d’Europa,” the “Biblioteca Germanica,”

the “Biblioteca Italiana” and the “Giornale di Fisica, Chimica e Storia

Naturale” (Larousse, “Dict. Univ.,” Vol. IV. p. 908; J. J. Prechtl, in

Schweigger’s _Journal_, Vol. IV for 1812; Fr. Mochetti, “Lettera al P.

Configliachi,” Como, 1814; “Bibl. Britan.,” Vol. LVIII, 1815, p. 305

and Vol. IV of the N.S. for 1817, pp. 1–8).

=A.D. 1813.=--Sharpe (John Robert), of Doe Hill, near Alfreton,

transmits to the _Repertory of Arts_ a letter, which appeared in

its Vol. XXIX, second series, p. 23, wherein he alludes to p. 188,

Vol. XXIV of the same series, containing an account of Sömmering’s

apparatus. He says:

“Without the slightest wish to throw a doubt over the originality of

Mr. Sömmering’s invention, I beg leave to mention that an experiment,

showing the advantages to be obtained from the application of the

certain and rapid motion of the electric principle through an extensive

voltaic circuit to the purpose of the ordinary telegraph, was exhibited

by me before the Right Hon. the Lords of the Admiralty, in the

beginning of February 1813.”

It is said that the Lords of the Admiralty spoke approvingly of it, but

stated that as the war was over, and money scarce, they could not carry

it into effect (_Saturday Review_ for August 21, 1858, p. 190).

Ronalds says (“Catal.,” p. 473):

“No description of this telegraph appears to have been printed. It was

mentioned at the Admiralty after the invention and full description of

Sömmering’s, described fully and with figures in the Denkschriften of

the Academy of Munich for 1809–1810, issued in 1811.”

Mr. Benjamin Sharpe, nephew of J. R. Sharpe, is the author of “A

Treatise on the Construction and Submersion of Deep-Sea Electric

Telegraph Cables,” London, 1861, wherein he alludes to the above, and

asserts that his uncle “conveyed signals a distance of seven miles

under water” (Fahie’s “History,” pp. 244–246; _Sci. Am. Supp._,

No. 404, pp. 6, 446).

=A.D. 1813.=--Deleuze (Joseph Philippe François), French

physician, publishes his “Histoire Critique du Magnétisme Animal,”

containing the result of observations made by him during the previous

twenty-five years upon animal magnetism.

According to Dr. Allen Thomson, of the University of Glasgow, Deleuze

believed in the existence of an all-pervading magnetic fluid. This

fluid, says he, is under the control of the will, and is constantly

escaping from our bodies, forming around them an atmosphere, which,

having no determinate current, does not act sensibly on the person near

us; but, when urged and directed by our volition, it moves with all

the force which we impress upon it; it is moved like the luminous rays

emitted by substances in a state of combustion. The chief difference

between the Deleuze and Puységur schools has reference to the various

modes in which the magnetic fluid should be brought into action, and

the suitable occasions for its employment.

During the year 1815 the Magnetic Society was established in Paris,

with M. De Puységur as its president and M. Deleuze as vice-president,

but it expired in 1820. In 1819 M. Deleuze had published his “Défense

du Magnétisme Animal,” in reply to the attack made upon the subject

by M. Virey through the “Dictionnaire des Sciences Médicales,” and he

was followed, more particularly, by M. Bertrand, who issued in 1823

his “Traité du Somnambulisme,” and in 1826 his still more important

work, “Du Magnétisme Animal en France,” etc. Respecting the last named

Deleuze says:

“Of all the attacks directed against magnetism up to the present

day, this is the most powerful, the most imposing, and the most ably

combined. The author is a man of genius, etc. He has been occupied

with magnetism for some years. He has joined its practice to that of

medicine, and he has even taught its doctrines in public lectures.

A more attentive examination and new experiments have dissuaded him

from a belief which he himself propagated; he undertakes to undeceive

others, and to prove that magnetism is a mere chimera. Certainly his

conviction must be very strong.”

REFERENCES.--Article “Somnambulism,” in the “Britannica,” more

especially for a review of, and extracts from, Deleuze’s great

work, also the translation of the latter by T. C. Hartshorn, of

which the enlarged fourth edition was published at London in

1850, accompanied by notes and a life by Dr. Foissac.

=A.D. 1813.=--Brande (William Thomas), F.R.S., succeeds Sir Humphry

Davy as Professor of Chemistry to the Royal Institution after having

long been his assistant.

He was already favourably known through a long line of interesting

chemical experiments, one of which, treating of the effects of the

galvanic current on albumen, had attracted very particular attention at

the time it was communicated to the _Philosophical Transactions_.

When he applied Davy’s method to fluids containing albumen, the

albumen and acid were found at the positive pole and the albumen and

alkali at the negative pole, and he also observed that, although it

remained fluid with a weak battery, a stronger one caused it to be

separated in a coagulated form. In like experiments subsequently made

by Golding Bird, coagulation took place in the positive vessel, while

none occurred in the negative; after a time the contents of the former

had an acid taste, and of the latter a caustic alkaline flavour. When

all in the positive vessel was coagulated by the galvanic action, he

found there hydrochloric acid mixed with chlorine and the alkali in the

negative vessel.

He also repeated the experiments of Davy on the light developed by

charcoal points connected with a powerful galvanic battery, and found

that this light was as effectual as solar light in decomposing muriate

of silver and other bodies, and in acting upon hydrogen and chlorine

gases, causing them to detonate, but he could not produce the same

effect by the moon’s rays or by any other light.

The electricity developed in flame, which had received much attention

from Paul Erman and others, was likewise investigated by Prof. Brande,

whose conclusions are to be found detailed at Sec. III. chap. iii.

part i. of the “Electricity” article in the “Encyclopædia Britannica.”

Therein is recalled the fact that A. L. Lavoisier, P. S. Laplace and

Aless. Volta previously obtained clear indications of electricity by

the combustion of charcoal, while H. B. de Saussure failed to develop

electricity either by the combustion or explosion of gunpowder, and

Humphry Davy could not obtain it through the combustion of charcoal

or of iron in air or in pure oxygen. In the above-named article will

also be found an account of the investigations of Pouillet and of

Becquerel in the same line; some of the other well-known scientists

who have treated more or less directly upon the subject being E. F.

Dutour, J. S. Waitz, J. J. Hemmer, Heinrich Buff, G. Gurney, Carlo

Matteucci, W. R. Grove, Michael Faraday, M. A. Bancalari, W. G. Hankel,

F. Zantedeschi and M. Neyreneuf.

REFERENCES.--_Phil. Mag._, Vol. XLIV. p. 124; _Phil. Mag. or

Annals_, Vol. IX. p. 237; _Annales de Chimie_, 5^e série,

Vol. II; _Phil. Trans._ for 1809 and 1820; _Mémoires de

Mathématiques_, Vol. II. p. 246; “Cat. Sc. Pap. Roy. Soc.,” Vol.

I. p. 48; “Bibl. Britan.,” Vol. LVII, 1814, p. 11.

=A.D. 1813.=--Colonel Mark Beaufoy (already alluded to at Graham, A.D.

1722), describes in the first volume of Dr. Thomas Thomson’s _Annals

of Philosophy_ what has by many been called the most perfect form known

of the variation compass. It is also to be found illustrated at p.

81, Vol. XIV of the eighth “Britannica,” wherein it is said that he

employed it in the valuable series of magnetic observations made by him

between the years 1813 and 1821. It consists of a telescope, underneath

the axis of which is a magnetic needle whose position is alterable in

order to indicate the exact angle of deviation, or the declination of

the needle from the true meridian.

Brewster states (eighth “Brit.,” Vol. XIV. p. 54) that when the diurnal

variation of the needle was first discovered it was supposed to have

only two changes in its movements during the day. About 7 a.m. its

north end began to deviate to the west, and about 2 p.m. it reached

its maximum westerly deviation. It then returned to the eastward to

its first position, and remained stationary till it again resumed its

westerly course in the following morning. When magnetic observations

became more accurate, it was found that the diurnal movement commences

much earlier than 7 a.m., but its motion is to the east. At 7.30

a.m. it reaches its greatest easterly deviation, and then begins its

movement to the west till 2 p.m. It then returns to the eastward till

the evening, when it has again a slight westerly motion; and in the

course of the night, or early in the morning, it reaches the point

from which it set out twenty-four hours before. The most accurate

observations made in England were those of Colonel Beaufoy, when the

variation was about 24½´ west. In these the absolute maxima were

earlier than in Canton’s observations, and the second maximum west

about 11 p.m. Dr. Thomas Thomson alludes to the diurnal investigations

of Barlow and Christie and others, and gives (“Outline of the

Sciences,” London, 1830, pp. 543–550) a table of the mean monthly

variation of the compass from April 1817 to March 1819 as determined

by Colonel Beaufoy. Mr. Peter Barlow, he says, has given in his “Essay

on Magnetic Attractions” a very ingenious and plausible explanation of

the daily variation by supposing the sun to possess a certain magnetic

action on the needle.

REFERENCES.--_Phil. Mag._, Vol. LIII, 1819, p. 387; LV, 1820,

p. 394; W. S. Harris, “Rud. Mag.,” Parts I, II, pp. 150–152;

“Encycl. Metrop.,” Vol. III (Magnetism), pp. 766, 767; _Annals

of Phil._, series 1, Vols. II, VI, IX, XVI, and N.S., Vol. I. p.

94, for Beaufoy’s own summary of all his observations.

=A.D. 1814.=--Mr. Thomas Howldy addresses to the _Philosophical

Magazine_ a letter, dated Hereford, March 24, 1814, relative to

“Experiments evincing the influence of atmospheric moisture on an

electric column composed of 1000 discs of zinc and silver,” wherein

he also makes reference to the dry pile of J. A. De Luc alluded to at

A.D. 1809.

REFERENCES.--_Phil. Mag._, Vol. XLIII. pp. 241, 363, and

_Nicholson’s Journal_, Vol. XXXV. p. 84; also the _Phil. Mag._,

Vol. XLI. p. 393, for a description of the electric column of

20,000 pairs of zinc and silver plates, and others, constructed

during the previous year (1813) by Mr. George J. Singer.

The above-named letter was followed (_Phil. Mag._, Vols. XLVI. pp.

401–408, and XLVII. p. 285) by a communication on the “Franklinian

Theory of the Leyden Jar ... with Some Remarks on Mr. Donovan’s

Experiments,” and by another letter sent to MM. R. Taylor and R.

Phillips (_Phil. Mag. or Annals_, Vol. I. p. 343) relative to the paper

of William Sturgeon “On the Inflammation of Gunpowder by Electricity,”

which appeared at p. 20 of the last-named book.

An interchange of correspondence not long since through the columns of

the London _Electrical Review_, for the purpose of ascertaining

the period of the earliest use of carbon as a resistant, brought forth

an extract from the “Treatise on Atmospheric Electricity,” published

at London and Edinburgh, 1830, by Mr. John Murray, of Glasgow, which

reads as follows: “Mr. Howldy, of Hereford, an ingenious electrician,

has by some novel experiments clearly proved the increased power of

electricity if retarded in its progress; instead of using tubes of

glass filled with water, as Mr. Woodward had done, he has employed a

glass tube supplied with lamp black.”

=A.D. 1814.=--Murray (John), Scotch physician and chemist, also

Ph.D., and Professor of Chemistry and Materia Medica in the Edinburgh

University, is the author of works entitled, “On Electrical Phenomena,

and on the new substance called Jod (Iode),” also “On the Phenomena of

Electricity,” published at London, respectively, during the years 1814

and 1815 (Tilloch’s _Phil. Mag._, Vols. XLIII. pp. 270–272; XLV.

pp. 38–41; “Catalogue Sci. Pap. Roy. Soc.,” Vol. IV. pp. 556–557).

Dr. John Murray died July 22, 1820, in Edinburgh, the place of his

birth, as will be seen by reference to Larousse, “Dict. Univ.,” Vol.

XI. p. 706, and to Poggendorff, Vol. II. pp. 243, 244. He should not

be confounded, as has been done by many, with _Mr._ John Murray, whose

papers, read before the Royal Society (“Catalogue Scientific Papers,”

Vol. IV. pp. 557–559; Vol. VI. p. 731), treat of the relations of

caloric to magnetism, of the unequal distribution of caloric in voltaic

action, etc., of aerolites, of the decomposition of metallic salts

by the magnet, of the ignition of wires by the galvanic battery, of

lightning rods, conductors, etc. (These papers appear in Tilloch’s

_Phil. Mag._, Vols. LIV, 1819, pp. 39–43; LVIII, 1821, pp. 380–382; LX,

1822, pp. 358–361; LXI, 1823, p. 207; LXII, 1823, p. 74; LXIII, 1824,

pp. 130, 131; L. F. von Froriep, “Notizen ...” for 1823, Vol. IV. col.

198; _Edin. Phil. Jour._, Vols. XIV for 1826, pp. 57–62; XVIII for

1828, pp. 88–91; and in Sturgeon’s _Annals_, Vols. III for 1838–1839,

pp. 64–68; VII for 1841, pp. 82–83.)

Mr. John Murray is said to have been a lecturer on experimental

philosophy, and one of his most interesting reviews is the one

appearing at p. 62, Vol. XLIII of the _Phil. Mag._ regarding

Ezekiel Walker’s theory of combustion as deduced from galvanic

phenomena. Murray thinks there is much obscurity in Mr. Walker’s

solution, which arises “from his using indiscriminately the terms

heat (caloric) and combustion. Now caloric (the matter of heat) and

combustion (the act of ignition) are not identical. What may be

collected, however, from the general tenor of that paper is the theory

of Lavoisier in a new dress.”

At p. 17 of this same volume is a paper from Mr. John Webster on the

agency of electricity in contributing the peculiar properties of bodies

and producing combustion, while, at p. 20, is a letter from Mr. George

J. Singer wherein he calls Mr. Walker a novice in the science of

electricity, saying that among other things he “has yet to learn that a

conducting body supported by dry glass and surrounded by dry air may be

still very far from being insulated.”

The treatise of Mr. John Murray on “Atmospheric Electricity” previously

alluded to (at Thomas Howldy, A.D. 1814) was translated into

French (“Mém. de l’Elec. Atm.”) by J. R. D. Riffault, Paris, 1831.

REFERENCES.--_Phil. Mag._, Vols. XLIII. p. 175; L. pp. 145,

312; LII. p. 60; LIII. pp. 268, 468; LVIII. p. 387; LX. p. 61;

LXI. p. 394; LXII. p. 456; LXIII. p. 130; also pp. 306, 307 of

Fahie’s “History,” regarding John Murray’s “Notes to Assist the

Memory in Various Sciences.”

=A.D. 1814.=--Wedgwood (Ralph), member of the family whose name

is inseparably connected with one of the most beautiful manufactures

of pottery, completes an electric telegraph, upon which he has been

steadily at work from 1806. Of its construction or mode of action he

appears, however, to have left no particulars.

At pp. 178 and 180 of “The Wedgwoods ...” by Llewellyn Jewett, London,

1865, appears the following:

“This Thomas Wedgwood was, I believe, cousin to Josiah, being son

of Aaron Wedgwood, etc., etc. ... He was a man of high scientific

attainments, and has the reputation of being the first inventor of the

electric telegraph (afterward so ably carried out by his son Ralph)

and of many other valuable works.... In 1806 Ralph Wedgwood established

himself at Charing Cross, and soon afterward his whole attention began

to be engrossed with his scheme of the electric telegraph, which in

the then unsettled state of the kingdom--in the midst of war, it must

be remembered--he considered would be of the utmost importance to the

government. In 1814, having perfected his scheme, he submitted his

proposals to Lord Castlereagh, and most anxiously waited the result

... was informed that ‘the war being at an end, the old system was

sufficient for the country.’ The plan, therefore, fell to the ground,

until Prof. Wheatstone, in happier and more enlightened times, again

brought up the subject with such eminent success. The plan thus brought

forward by Ralph Wedgwood, in 1814, and of which, as I have stated,

he received the first idea from his father, was described by him in a

pamphlet, entitled ‘An Address to the Public on the Advantages of a

Proposed Introduction of the Stylographic Principle of Writing Into

General Use; And Also an Improved Species of Telegraphy, Calculated for

the Use of the Public, as Well as for the Government.’”

The pamphlet is dated May 29, 1815. Fahie gives (“History,” pp.

125–127) extracts both from this pamphlet, regarding the electric

Fulguri-Polygraph, and from the communication of Mr. W. R. Wedgwood to

the _Commercial Magazine_ for December 1846, urging his father’s

claims to a share in the discovery of the electric telegraph.

REFERENCES.--“Life of Wedgwood,” by Miss Meteyard, 2 vols.,

1865–1866; J. D. Reid, “The Telegraph in America,” p. 70.

=A.D. 1814.=--Singer (George John), distinguished English scientist

and writer, publishes the first edition of his valuable “Elements of

Electricity and Electro-Chemistry,” of which translations were made, in

French by M. Thillaye, Paris, 1817, as well as in German and in Italian

during the year 1819.

Mr. Singer is the inventor of the improvement upon Mr. Bennet’s

electroscope, which is to be found illustrated and described in nearly

all works upon natural philosophy and the main design of which is to

diminish, if not totally prevent, the amount of moisture generally

precipitated upon the surface of insulators. Mr. Singer remarks that

his arrangement so effectually precludes moisture that some of the

“electrometers constructed in 1810 and which have never yet (1814)

been warmed or wiped, have still apparently the same insulating power

as at first.” The use of this apparatus is strongly recommended by Dr.

Faraday, whose instructions for the use of electrometers are given at

great length at pp. 617–619, Vol. VIII of the eighth “Britannica.”

After describing the above-named electrometer, Mr. William Sturgeon

remarks (“Lectures,” London, 1842, pp. 42, 43):

“It is frequently exceedingly difficult, without extensive reading, to

confer the merit that is due to invention on the right party, and even

then we sometimes err for want of proper information. Mr. Singer has

hitherto, with most writers, had the exclusive merit of insulating the

axial wire of the electroscope from the brass cap, by a glass tube; and

it would appear from the description he gives of this improvement in

his excellent treatise on electricity that he was not aware of anything

of the kind being previously done. It appears, however, by an article

of Mr. Erman in the _Journal de Physique_, Vol. LIX. p. 98, and

_Nicholson’s Journal_, Vol. X, published in 1805, that a Mr. Weiss

had applied the glass tube for the purpose of insulating the axial wire

of Bennet’s electroscope. The account runs thus: ‘The electrometer he

(Mr. Erman) used was that distinguished in Germany as the electrometer

of Weiss.’ From this it would appear to have been long known. ‘The

length of its leaves of gold is half an inch, and the diameter of the

glass cylinder which encloses them is three-quarters of an inch, the

height being an inch and a half. Its cover of ivory does not project

above the glass, and is perforated in the middle with a hole in which

a _smaller glass tube is fixed, and through this last tube passes

the metallic rod that serves to suspend the gold leaves_.’ Singer’s

improvement, first published in 1814, would, therefore, consist in

adding the brass ferrule, which covers the glass tube first introduced

by Weiss.”

Singer is also the inventor of one of the best-known amalgams for the

cushions of the electric machine. It is described at p. 536, Vol.

VIII of the eighth “Britannica,” where it is said that a mixture of

one part tin and two parts mercury is very effective, as is also the

amalgam consisting of mosaic gold and the deutosulphuret of tin. (Other

descriptions of the application of mosaic gold on the rubber are to

be found at p. 432, Vol. II of “Young’s Course of Lectures”; Woulfe,

_Phil. Trans._, 1771, p. 114; Bienvenu and Witry de Abt, _Lichtenb.

Mag._, Vols. II. p. 211, and IV. st. 3, pp. 58–61; Marquis de Bouillon,

“Observ. de Physique,” XXI.)

The dry electric columns which Mr. Singer invented are alluded to

in _Phil. Mag._, Vols. XLI. p. 393 and XLV. p. 359, while

the results of his experiments on the electric fusion of metallic

wires and the oxidation of metals, as well as those made upon the

electricity of sifted powders and also in order to ascertain the

effects of electricity upon gases, are to be found recorded at pp. 564,

592, 593 and 597, Vol. VIII of the 1855 “Britannica,” and at p. 46

(“Electricity”) of “Library of Useful Knowledge.”

REFERENCES.--pp. 15, 16 of the last-named work; Poggendorff,

Vol. II. pp. 938, 939; Figuier, “Exp. et Hist.,” 1857, Vol.

IV. p. 267; Sturgeon’s “Lectures,” 1842, p. 11; _Phil. Mag._,

Vols. XXXVII. p. 80; XLII. pp. 36, 261; XLIII. p. 20; XLVI. pp.

161, 259; likewise Ch. Samuel Weiss, at Poggendorff, Vol. II.

pp. 1287–1289; “Bibl. Britan.,” Vol. XLIII, 1810, p. 166; Vol.

XLVII, 1811, pp. 3, 113, 213, 313; Vol. LVI, 1814, pp. 197, 318.

=A.D. 1814–1815.=--Fraunhofer--Frauenhofer (Joseph von), a

practical Bavarian physicist and optician, who had been assistant

to the celebrated George Reichenbach, publishes his observations

on spectra in a pamphlet entitled “Bestimmung des Brechungs und

Farbenzerstreuungs-Vermögens ...”

In the latter work will be found detailed his experiments with the

electric spark, which he found to give a different spectrum from

all other lights. Sir David Brewster says that in order to obtain a

continuous line of electrical light Fraunhofer brought to within half

an inch of each other two conductors, and united them by a very fine

glass thread. One of the conductors was connected with an electrical

machine and the other communicated with the ground. In this manner

the light appeared to pass continuously along the fibre of glass,

which consequently formed a fine and brilliant line of light. When

this luminous line was expanded by refraction, Fraunhofer saw that,

in relation to the lines of its spectrum, electric light was very

different both from the light of the sun and from that of a lamp. In

this spectrum he met with several lines partly very clear, and one of

which, in the green space, seemed very brilliant compared with other

parts of the spectrum (_Edin. Jour. of Sci._, No. XV. p. 7). He

saw in the orange another line not quite so bright, which appeared to

be of the same colour as that in lamplight spectra; but in measuring

its angle of refraction he found that its light was much more strongly

refracted, and nearly as much as the yellow rays of lamplight. In the

red rays toward the extremity of the spectrum, he observed a line

of very little brightness, and yet its light had the same degree of

refrangibility as the clear line of lamplight, while in the rest of

the spectrum he saw the other four lines sufficiently bright. In a

subsequent paper read at Munich in 1823 (“Neue Modifikation des Lichtes

...” or “New Modification of Light”) and in Schumacher’s “Astronomische

Abhandlungen,” Fraunhofer states that, by means of the large electrical

machine in the cabinet of the Academy of Munich, he obtained a spectrum

of electric light in which he recognized a great number of light lines,

and that he had determined the relative place of the lightest lines as

well as the ratios of their intensities.

The introduction of the electric spark for the purpose of volatilizing

metals was an important step in the development of spectral analysis,

but although used by both Wollaston and Fraunhofer its true value in

that particular line was not realized for many years after their time.

Fraunhofer is not only celebrated as one of the founders of spectrum

analysis, but he is well known also as the inventor of many important

philosophical instruments, being the constructor of the great Dorpat

parallactic telescope, called by Struve _the giant refractor_. It

was during the year 1814 that he measured and described the innumerable

dark lines of the solar spectrum known as Fraunhofer’s lines, which

were first noticed by Wollaston and reported upon by the latter to the

Royal Society in 1802.

REFERENCES.--M. Merz, “Das Leben und Wirken Fraunhofers,”

Landshut, 1865; Ninth “Encycl. Brit.,” Vol. IX. p. 727; “Abh.

der K. Bayer, Akad. d. Wiss.” for 1814 and 1815; Fraunhofer’s

biography in the “Memoirs of the Astronomical Society of

London,” Vol. III. p. 117; his “Determination ...” München,

1819; Whewell, “Hist. of Ind. Sci.,” 1859, Vol. II. p. 475;

_Sci. Am._, Nov. 19, 1887, p. 321; _Phil. Trans._ for 1814,

pp. 204, 205, and for 1820, p. 95; Tyndall, “Heat as a Mode of

Motion,” 1873, pp. 485, 486; article “Optics” in eighth “Encycl.

Brit.,” Vol. XVI. pp. 544, 588, 591; Sir David Brewster’s

article on “Electricity” in the “Encycl. Brit.”; “Mem. of the

Roy. Bav. Acad. of Sci.” for 1822; “On the Spectrum of the

Electric Arc,” in Jas. Dredge’s “Elec. Illum.,” Vol. I. pp. 32,

36; _Edin. Trans._, Vol. VIII for 1822; _Edin. Jour. Sci._, Vol.

XIII. pp. 101, 251; _Biblioth. Univ._, Vol. VI. p. 21, as per

Becquerel’s “Traité ...” Vol. I. p. 23; Dr. William A. Miller’s

first and third lectures before the Royal Institution in 1867;

Houzeau et Lancaster, “Bibl. Gén.,” Vol. II. p. 136; Rich. A.

Proctor, “Old and New Astronomy,” 1892, p. 787.

=A.D. 1815.=--Bohnenberger (Johann Joseph Friedrich von), 1765–1831,

Professor of Mathematics and of Astronomy at the Tübingen University,

constructs an extremely sensitive electrometer by suspending a single

strip of gold leaf upon a wire midway between, though apart from, the

insulated terminating discs of De Luc’s column.

With this contrivance he found that, however slightly the leaf was

electrified, it was drawn to one of the poles according to the nature

of the electricity affecting it, and he was thus enabled to observe not

only the presence of the slightest electrical influence, but the kind

of electricity which was present.