Makers of Electricity. James J. Walsh
anomaly. Gilbert failed to discover the distinction between conductors and insulators; and, as a consequence, never found out that similarly electrified bodies repel each other. Had he but suspended an excited stick of sealing-wax, what a promised land of electrical wonders would have unfolded itself to his vision and what a harvest of results such a reaper would have gathered in! From solids, Gilbert proceeds to examine the behavior of liquids, and finds that they, too, are susceptible of electrical influence. He notices that a piece of rubbed amber when brought near a drop of water deforms it, drawing it out into a conical shape. He even experiments with smoke, concluding that the small carbon particles are attracted by an electrified body. Some years ago, Sir Oliver Lodge, extending this observation, proposed to lay the poisonous dust floating about in the atmosphere of lead works by means of large electrostatic machines. He even hinted in his Royal Institution lecture that they might be useful in dissipating mists and fogs, and recommended that a trial be made on some of our ocean-steamers.
Gilbert next tries heat as an agent to produce electrification. He takes a red-hot coal and finds that it has no effect on his electroscope; he heats a mass of iron up to whiteness and finds that it, too, exerts no electrical effect. He tries a flame, a candle, a burning torch, and concludes that all bodies are attracted by electrics save those that are afire or flaming, or extremely rarefied. He then reverses the experiment, bringing near an excited body the flame of a lamp, and ingenuously states that the body no longer attracts the pivoted needle. He thus discovered the neutralizing effect of flames, and supplied us with the readiest means that we have to-day for discharging non-conductors.
He goes a step further; for we find him exposing some of his electrics to the action of the sun's rays in order to see whether they acquired a charge; but all his results were negative. He then concentrates the rays of the sun by means of lenses, evidently expecting some electrical effect; but finding none, concludes with a vein of pathos that the sun imparts no power, but dissipates and spoils the electric effluvium.
Professor Righi has shown that a clean metallic plate acquires a positive charge when exposed to the ultraviolet radiation from any artificial source of light, but that it does not when exposed to solar rays. The absence of electrical effects in the latter case is attributed to the absorptive action of the atmosphere on the shorter waves of the solar beam.
Of course Gilbert permits himself some speculation as to the nature of the agent with which he was dealing. He thought of it, reasoned about it, pursued it in every way; and came to the conclusion that it must be something extremely tenuous indeed, but yet substantial, ponderable, material. "As air is the effluvium of the earth," he says, "so electrified bodies have an effluvium of their own, which they emit when stimulated or excited"; and again: "It is probable that amber exhales something peculiar that attracts the bodies themselves."
These views are quite in line with the electronic theory of electricity in vogue to-day, which invests that elusive entity with an atomic structure. It is held that the tiny particles or electrons that are shot out from the cathode terminal of a vacuum tube with astounding velocity are none other than particles of negative electricity, pure and simple. They have mass and inertia, both of which properties are held to be entirely electrical, though quite analogous to the mass and inertia of ordinary, ponderable matter.
History shows that scientific theories have their periods of infancy, maturity and decay. When they have served their purpose, like the scaffolding of a building, they are removed from sight and stored away, say, in a limbo of discarded philosophy, for use of the historian of science or of the metaphysician writing on the nature of human knowledge. Such was the fate of Gilbert's "effluvium" theory of electricity, of the fluid theories of Dufay and Franklin, and the ether-strain theory of recent years. "Each physical hypothesis," says Prof. Fleming, "serves as a lamp to conduct us a certain stage in the journey. It illumines a limited portion of the path, throwing light before and behind for some distance; but it has to be discarded and exchanged at intervals because it has become exhausted and because its work is done."
It is a little surprising that the phenomenon of electrical repulsion should have escaped the attention of one so skilled in experimentation as Gilbert. Yet such was the case; and Gilbert even went so far as to deny its very existence, saying, "Electrics attract objects of every kind; they never repel." This error reminds one of Gilbert's own saying that "Men of acute intelligence, without actual knowledge of facts, and in the absence of experiment, easily slip and err." Just twenty-nine years after Gilbert had penned this aphorism, there appeared in Ferrara an extensive work on electric and magnetic philosophy, by the Jesuit Cabeo, in which this electrical repulsion was recognized and described. Having rubbed one of his electrics, Cabeo noticed that it attracted grains of dust at first and afterward repelled them suddenly and violently. In the case of threads, hairs or filaments of any kind, he observed that they quivered a little before being flung away like sawdust. This self-repelling property of electricity, described in the year 1629, opened up a new field of inquiry, which was actively explored by a number of brilliant electricians in England and on the Continent.
This was especially the case after the building of the first frictional machine by Otto von Guericke in 1672. The burgomaster of Magdeburg had already acquired European fame by the original and sensational experiments on atmospheric pressure which he made in presence of the Emperor and his nobles in solemn diet assembled (1651). Von Guericke seems to have been of a mind with Gilbert concerning writers on natural science who treat their subjects "esoterically, miracle-mongeringly, abstrusely, reconditely, mystically"; for he affirms that "oratory, elegance of diction or skill in disputation avails nothing in the field of natural science."
Von Guericke's machine consisted of a ball of sulphur, with the hand of the operator or assistant as rubber. Some years later, the sulphur ball was replaced by Newton (some say Hauksbee) by a glass globe, which, in turn, was exchanged for a glass cylinder by Gordon, a Scotch Benedictine, who was Professor of natural philosophy in the University of Erfurt. In 1755, Martin de Planta, of Sus, in Switzerland, constructed a plate-machine which was subsequently improved by Ramsden of London. The frictional machine, as it was rightly called, has been superseded by the influence machine, a type of static generator which is at once efficient, reliable and easy of operation. The best known form for laboratory use is that of Wimshurst (1832–1903), of London.
Andrew Gordon, the Scotch Benedictine to whom reference has just been made, was a man of an inventive turn of mind. Besides, the cylindrical electric machine which he constructed, he devised several ingenious pieces of electrical apparatus, among which are the electric chimes usually ascribed to Franklin. They are fully described in his Versuch einer Erklärung der Electricität, published in 1745. On page 38, he says that he was led to try an electrical method of ringing bells; and then adds: "For this purpose I placed two small wine-glasses near each other, one of which stood on an electrified board, while the other, placed at a distance of an inch from it, was connected with the ground. Between the two, I suspended a little clapper by a silk thread, which clapper was attracted by the electrified glass and then repelled to the grounded one, giving rise to a sound as it struck each glass. As the clapper adhered somewhat to the glasses, the effect on the whole was not agreeable. I, therefore, substituted two small metallic gongs suspended one from an electrified conductor and the other from a grounded rod, the gongs being on the same level and one inch apart. When the clapper was lowered and adjusted, it moved at once to the electrified bell, from which it was driven over to the other, and kept on moving to and fro, striking the bell each time with pleasing effect until the electrified bell lost its charge." In the illustration, a is connected with the electrified conductor; b is the insulated clapper; c the grounded gong.
Gordon's book was published in Erfurt in 1745, while the year 1752 is that in which Franklin applied the chimes to his experimental rod to apprise him of the approach of an electric storm, an application which was original and quite in keeping with the practical turn of mind that characterized our journeyman-printer, philosopher and statesman. Unquestionably, Franklin had all the ingenuity and constructive ability needed to make such an appliance; but there is no evidence that he actually invented it. Though Franklin neither claimed nor disclaimed the chimes as his