Among the experimenters on Electricity in our time who have largely
contributed to the “Curiosities of Science,” Andrew Crosse is entitled
to special notice. In his school-days he became greatly attached to the
study of electricity; and on settling on his paternal estate, Fyne
Court, on the Quantock Hills in Somersetshire, he there devoted himself
to chemistry, mineralogy, and electricity, pursuing his experiments
wholly independently of theories, and searching only for facts. In
Holwell Cavern, near his residence, he observed the sides and the roof
covered with Arragonite crystallisations, when his observations led
him to conclude that the crystallisations were the effects, at least
to some extent, of electricity. This induced him to make the attempt
to form artificial crystals by the same means, which he began in 1807.
He took some water from the cave, filled a tumbler, and exposed it to
the action of a voltaic battery excited by water alone, letting the
platinum-wires of the battery fall on opposite sides of the tumbler
from the opposite poles of the battery. After ten days’ constant
action, he produced crystals of carbonate of lime; and on repeating
the experiment in the dark, he produced them in six days. Thus Mr.
Crosse simulated in his laboratory one of the hitherto most mysterious
processes of nature.
He pursued this line of research for nearly thirty years at Fyne Court,
where his electrical-room and laboratory were on an enormous scale:
the apparatus had cost some thousands of pounds, and the house was
nearly full of furnaces. He carried an insulated wire above the tops
of the trees around his house to the length of a mile and a quarter,
afterwards shortened to 1800 feet. By this wire, which was brought
into connection with the apparatus in a chamber, he was enabled to see
continually the changes in the state of the atmosphere, and could use
the fluid so collected for a variety of purposes. In 1816, at a meeting
of country gentlemen, he prophesied that, “by means of electrical
agency, we shall be able to communicate our thoughts simultaneously
with the uttermost ends of the earth.” Still, though he foresaw
the powers of the medium, he did not make any experiments in that
direction, but confined himself to the endeavour to produce crystals
of various kinds. He ultimately obtained forty-one mineral crystals,
or minerals uncrystallised, in the form in which they are produced by
nature, including one sub-sulphate of copper--an entirely new mineral,
neither found in nature nor formed by art previously. His belief was
that even diamonds might be produced in this way.
Mr. Crosse worked alone in his retreat until 1836, when, attending
the meeting of the British Association at Bristol, he was induced to
explain his experiments, for which he was highly complimented by Dr.
Buckland, Dr. Dalton, Professor Sedgwick, and others.[51]
Shortly after Mr. Crosse’s return to Fyne Court, while pursuing his
experiments for forming crystals from a highly caustic solution out
of contact with atmospheric air, he was greatly surprised by the
appearance of an insect. Black flint, burnt to redness and reduced to
powder, was mixed with carbonate of potash, and exposed to a strong
heat for fifteen minutes; and the mixture was poured into a black-lead
crucible in an air furnace. It was reduced to powder while warm,
mixed with boiling water, kept boiling for some minutes, and then
hydrochloric acid was added to supersaturation. After being exposed
to voltaic action for twenty-six days, a perfect insect of the Acari
tribe made its appearance, and in the course of a few weeks about a
hundred more. The experiment was repeated in other chemical fluids
with the like results; and Mr. Weeks of Sandwich afterwards produced
the Acari inferrocyanerret of potassium. The Acarus of Mr. Crosse was
found to contribute a new species of that genus, nearly approaching
the Acari found in cheese and flour, or more nearly, Hermann’s _Acarus
dimidiatus_.
This discovery occasioned great excitement. The possibility was denied,
though Mr. Faraday is said to have stated in the same year that he had
seen similar appearances in his own electrical experiments. Mr. Crosse
was now accused of impiety and aiming at creation, to which attacks he
thus replied:
As to the appearance of the acari under long-continued electrical
action, I have never in thought, word, or deed given any one a
right to suppose that I considered them as a creation, or even as a
formation, from inorganic matter. To create is to form a something
out of a nothing. To annihilate is to reduce that something to
a nothing. Both of these, of course, can only be the attributes
of the Almighty. In fact, I can assure you most sacredly that I
have never dreamed of any theory sufficient to account for their
appearance. I confess that I was not a little surprised, and am so
still, and quite as much as I was when the acari made their first
appearance. Again, I have never claimed any merit as attached to
these experiments. It was a matter of chance; I was looking for
silicious formations, and animal matter appeared instead.
These Acari, if removed from their birthplace, lived and propagated;
but uniformly died on the first recurrence of frost, and were entirely
destroyed if they fell back into the fluid whence they arose.
One of Mr. Crosse’s visitors thus describes the vast electrical room at
Fyne Court:
Here was an immense number of jars and gallipots, containing fluids
on which electricity was operating for the production of crystals.
But you are startled in the midst of your observations by the smart
crackling sound that attends the passage of the electrical spark;
you hear also the rumbling of distant thunder. The rain is already
plashing in great drops against the glass, and the sound of the
passing sparks continues to startle your ear; you see at the window
a huge brass conductor, with a discharging rod near it passing into
the floor, and from the one knob to the other sparks are leaping
with increasing rapidity and noise, every one of which would kill
twenty men at one blow, if they were linked together hand in hand
and the spark sent through the circle. From this conductor wires
pass off without the window, and the electric fluid is conducted
harmlessly away. Mr. Crosse approached the instrument as boldly as
if the flowing stream of fire were a harmless spark. Armed with
his insulated rod, he sent it into his batteries: having charged
them, he showed how wire was melted, dissipated in a moment, by its
passage; how metals--silver, gold, and tin--were inflamed and burnt
like paper, only with most brilliant hues. He showed you a mimic
aurora and a falling-star, and so proved to you the cause of those
beautiful phenomena.
Mr. Crosse appears to have produced in all “about 200 varieties of
minerals, exactly resembling in all respects similar ones found in
nature.” He tried also a new plan of extracting gold from its ores
by an electrical process, which succeeded, but was too expensive
for common use. He was in the habit of saying that he could, like
Archimedes, move the world “if he were able to construct a battery at
once cheap, powerful, and durable.” His process of extracting metals
from their ores has been patented. Among his other useful applications
of electricity are the purifying by its means of brackish or sea-water,
and the improving bad wine and brandy. He agreed with Mr. Quekett
in thinking that it is by electrical action that silica and other
mineral substances are carried into and assimilated by plants. Negative
electricity Mr. Crosse found favourable to no plants except fungi;
and positive electricity he ascertained to be injurious to fungi, but
favourable to every thing else.
Mr. Crosse died in 1855. His widow has published a very interesting
volume of _Memorials_ of the ingenious experimenter, from which we
select the following:
On one occasion Mr. Crosse kept a pair of soles under the electric
action for three months; and at the end of that time they were
sent to a friend, whose domestics knew nothing of the experiment.
Before the cook dressed them, her master asked her whether she
thought they were fresh, as he had some doubts. She replied that
she was sure they were fresh; indeed, she said she could swear
that they were alive yesterday! When served at table they appeared
like ordinary fish; but when the family attempted to eat them,
they were found to be perfectly tasteless--the electric action had
taken away all the essential oil, leaving the fish unfit for food.
However, the process is exceedingly useful for keeping fish, meat,
&c. fresh and _good_ for ten days or a fortnight. I have never
heard a satisfactory explanation of the cause of the antiseptic
power communicated to water by the passage of the electric current.
Whether ozone has not something to do with it, may be a question.
The same effect is produced whichever two dissimilar metals are
used.
The Electric Telegraph.