Reviews.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 1, Issue 35, 22 May 1858, Page 7

Reviews.

AITDKEW CEOSSEi THE ELECTRICIAN .

(From the British Quarterly Review.)

Not far from the town of Taunton there recently dwelt a man who would have been regarded as a kind of enchanter had he lived in a less intelligent age. The superstitious peasant would have quickened his step as he passed along the road, overarched with solemn trees, which ran from the mansion of the magician ; or if he had stopped, it ■would have been to direct your eye to the poles fastened to the summits of the tallest trees, and to tell you in a whisper that these were the wands by which the sorceror conjured up storms, or controlled them, at pleasure. Yon -would be informed that this wonderful being could draw fire from mist, and extract streams of sparks from the drifting fog. He could entice the lightnings from heaven, and put them into his phials, or use them to make sport for his friends. He played with thunderbolts as if they were harmless toys, and handled the shafts of the tempest as if lie had forged them himself. And tin's man, too, it was said, had learnt many secrets of nature, and could tell how she made her crystals, and slowly formed her minerals in the caverns of the cartli — nay, it was rumoured that he could beat her at her own work, and had actually fashioned divers substances the like of which had never yet been discovered in the ground. But stranger than all, it was believed that this great enchanter could produce creeping things that had life in them, by means of his mystic arts, for had he not thrown his electrical spells over dead minerals and poisonous liquids, and constrained them to bring forth insects which ■were perfect in all their parts, and as vigorous as if they had been hatched without any magical compulsion ! Andrew Crosse was born in 1784. He -was the descendant of a respectable family long ■ stablished at Fyne Court, in the manor of Brooinfield. Andrew was a wild, laughing lad, passionately fond of frolic, and doubtless entitled to a little scourging occasionally : but Seyer dealt out his blows with undistinguishing liberality. One little retaliatory act on the part of the boy is worthy of mention, because it shows that his taste for mischief had. something of a scientific turn. Seyer detected him one day in the process of nnnufacturing rocket powder, and having carried oif the inflammable mixture, it was placed on the win-dow-sill of a room, and locked up for the time. To recapture it was impossible, but it occurred to the bereaved youth that he might perhaps fire the compound by m?ans of a burning-glass. A lens was procured ; the sun was shining ; its rays were speedily concentrated, and to (he infinite delight of the lad a brilliant explosion ensued. "It was ■well," said he, "that the house was not set on fire ; as for me, I was reckless of all consequences."

Mr. Crosse always attributed liis scientife tendencies to an amusing cause : he had a good appetite, and this made liira an electrician. The reader will scarcely see how, for there are thoxisands of boys equally endowed with gastric energy, who never rise to eminence in anything. The explanation, however, is this : — The drawing master lived at soms distance from Severs establishment, and not far from his residence there stood a tavern where joints of meat, beautifully boiled and beautifully roasted, were exhibited in the window in alluring array. To a boy with a lively appetite, who was led on vile black potatoes, mutton conglomerate, and other boarding-school atrocities, the vision of such dainties, all in a state of orthodox cookery, was peculiarly impressive. But to taste them was bliss ; that bliss he thought he might frequently enjoy if he could obtain lftjve to accompany his companions on their excursions to the artist's house. Professing to be smitten wiWi a love of the fine arts, he procured the requisite permission, and cominmced a series of studies in boiled and roast. Whilst thus engaged on one occasion, his eye was attracted by a syllabus of certain lectures to bs delivered on Natural Philosophy. These he resolved to attend. The second course was on Electricity ; and such was the fascination this subject exorcised, that his future pursuits, as he says, were at once decided. Nor was it long before Andrew introduced some of the wonders of electricity to the notice of his school-fellows. To one so full of fun the painful surprises of the Leyden phial must have opened out a source of exquis te enjoyment. The younger lads, as might be expected, were freely victimized. A large box, without door, was set on one end in the hall, and at the back there appeared a transparency representing a place which is said to have a peculiar sort of pavement, very excellent, but very insubstantial. A horrible object, with a pitchfork in h'fc^id, hovered in front of the view, whilst at one side there stood a figure dressed like a witch, and attended by a familiar spirit of a somewhat corporeal cast. The patient was either driven or enticed to the spot, and whilst gazing on the spectacle, and wondering what the mystery could mean, the contents of a Leyden jar was sent through his person. Boy after boy was thus led into the snare, and received a hearty 6hock, to his own excessive astonishment, but to the infinite delight of his tormentors. Need we say- that the leader of the revels — the high-priest of the performance was Andrew Crosse ! It was in sport that he commenced his electrical operations, with nothing but a broken barometer tube for his machine, and an apothecary's phial for his battery ; but before many years had elap^ec was lord of the finest apparatus in the kingdom, and was ardently engaged in conducting some of the most remarkable experiments which philosopher ever undertook or accomplished.

In visiting his seat at Broonjfield, the splendid apparatus he employed for extracting electricity from the atmosphere would first arrest the attention. Fancy the electric telegraph of our railways stretching across- a forest, with its posts mounted on the tops of the highest trees, and the reader will be enabled to form some idea of the scene in Mr. Crosses park. Par overhead ran •wires supported by poles which rose from the summits of the trees, and were provided with an insulatory arrangement to prevent the dispersion of the fluid. The duty of these wires was to fetch in the electricity from the clouds and fogs, so that it might be re-examined at ease by the owner of

the mansion. "Within the building there was a large room with an arched roof, originally intended for a music hall, but now occupied by voltaic batteries, galvanic piles, electrical jars, and other implements of philosophy. It- was a place where strange processes were in progress, and where subtle streams of fluid, flowing in silent but ceaseless currents, were busily employed in piling up little mineral fabrics, and compelling the obedient atoms to fashion themselves into exquisite forms of crystal architecture. But it was a place also where the same element might be seen in its pride, and where it might also be heard in its wrath ; for all those wires could be made to pour their supplies into a large brass conductor, fixed and insulated on a table in the organ gallery, and fittingly inscribed with the words, Noli me tangere. Not far from this conductor was another brass ball forming the extremity of a metallic arrangement by winch the electricity might be conveyed out of the building into the moist ground around. There was a contrivance too by which the current, when its strength became perilously great, or when its services were not required, might be turned off altogether, and discharged into the soil without entering the apartment. But if the magician wished to observe the play of the fiery element, it was easy to increase or diminish the distance between the two brass knobs, and thus to regulate the charge to be received by the huge battery employed. Then, if there was any eLctricity astir in the atmosphere, those balls would be sure to reveal the fact, and a succession of sparks and explosions, augmenting in rapidity as the commotion increased, would enable the observer to see into the storm as it were, and to listen to its doings related in its own voice. The results were surprising. 'With, this noble searching apparatus Mr. Crosse succeeded in obtaining an insight into the composition of a thun-der-cloud such as no one else had done before him. Imagine a dense mass of vapour approaching the elec r'cal observatory on a sultry summer's day. No sooner does its margin arrive overhead the exploring wire than the brass balls begin to announce the commencement of the fray. A spark is seen, a detonation heard, and these heralds of the tempest are followed by a scries of mimic flashes aud explosions somewhat slowly delivered, for they may not perhaps exceed nine or ten during the first minute of the convulsion. Then there is a pause, but after a while the apparatus gives forth another set of sparks and snappings, equal in number, equal also in force to those which have just been exhibited, but cliiFering in this particular — that if the first consisted of negative electricity, the second will consist of a contrary description. Another pause takes place ; and then the sparks begin to leap from ball to ball, but with greater vigour and rapidit y than before ; these are discharges of negative electricity as at the outset, and, ■when they have passed, a similar set of positive eruptions invariably ensues. Again the apparatvis becomes silent but it is only for a short interval : a more numerous and brilliant succession of flashes soon announce that another zone of negative vapour is sweeping aloft, to be followed after a brief respite by a corresponding zone of positive electricity. The intervals of repose now grow shorter, and at length a stream of fire is seen to pour from one conductor to the other, broken only by the change of one kind oi fluid to its opposite. When the centre of the cloud has reached' the spot, and the exploring wires are sucking (ho lightnings from its heart, the effect is inconceivably fine. With the thunder roaring around the building, the windows rattling in their frame, the rain dashing against the pain?, the electric fire bounding madly from ball to ball, and bursting incessantly as if enraged at the presumptuous mortal who had dared to drag it from its native sky, his must be a stout heart who CDuld witness such a scene without some feeling of awe or even of alarm. For there is death in every discharge, if those conductors were rashly approached, and thousands of Eichmans might perish in the emptying of a single cloud. But as <he excited vapors roll on, the explosions begin to slacken in number, and a scries of twin eruptions, alternating with periods of repose, shows that the latter half of the cloud corresponds in its electrical arrangements with fie former. Finally, the languid spark and lazy snap announce that the hurlyburly is nearly done, or that the storm is travelling with the remnant of its wrath to some neighbouring locality.

Tims were thunder-clouds dissected. Mr. Crosse was the first who traced and defined the skeleton of these aerial rovers. To hhn they were no longer like whales, or weasels, or camels, or anything a Polonious might imagine ; but they were masses, having a settled electrical structure, complex indeed, but as regular and harmonious as the belts of the rainbow. Formerly it was supposed that an excited cloud consisted of vapour similarly and equally charged throughout its mass. But now it appeared that there was an electrical nucleus impregnated with one species of fluid, round which ran zones of vapour arranged in pairs, each pair exhibiting positive and negative action in turn ar.d alternating with what seemed to be rings of repose. Further, it was manifest that the strength, of the cloud lay in its centre, for the fury of the discharges "radually increased as it approached, and diminished as it receded. This circumstance was not at all in keeping with what was known respecting the dispersion of the fluid on insulating platas or globes made of a conducting material. There the electricity is most abundant at the rim or superficies of the body : indeed in a solid sphere it disposes itself as a thin shell or atmosphere on the exterior, leaving the inner parts perfectly unexcited. But here in the cloud, the conditions appear to be reversed, and the fluid augments in power from the circumference to the centre.

Now to explain this ■unexpected fact? Crosse made it tl-etjp'cof fco^uent consideration. None of the solutions he could devise seemed to afford him much satisfaction until one day, -whilst, shaving, the puzzled philosopher cried out, Eureka ! and darted into his electrical hall with the lather still ornamenting his chin. He proceeded to try some experiments — for theory was nothing with him until embalmed in facts — and speedily convinced himself that his surmises were correct.

The shaving discovery was this. A cloud is not a solid conducing mass, but a congregation of vesicles separated ircm each other by little in-

tervalß. The watery globules, if closely packed together, would convey the electricity from one part to another with the greatest facility, but being estranged by the action of caloric, the fluid can only be propagated to a small distance by a direct communication. Induction, however, commences where transmission ceases. Ilence, if we suppose electricity to be developed in any particular spot in such a medium, it will spread itself circularly as far as its energy will enable it to push through the interspaces between the surrounding vesicles. Then it will begin to act inductively through the air, calling up the opposite kind of fluid in a ring or zone of watery particles, which ring or zone will be concentric with the excited nucleus. This, in its turn, necessitates the formation of another belt charged with the contrary species of electricity, and thus the whole cloud is mapped out into a series of electrical rings, arranged in pairs, with barren intervals, and a central mass, which is the metropolis of the storm. If the distribution of fluids could be rendered visible, and their presence denoted by different colors vying with those of the rainbow in brilliancy— the interspaces being left in their natural condition — what an impressive spectacle such a cloud would present as it rose above the horizon, mounted to the zenith, and then spread its huge folds over the heavens, like some monster serpent — say the Old Serpent of Sin let loose from Ids invisibility, and coming in horrible magnificence to crush the world in his embrace. In the absence, however, of these pictorial aids, some of Professor Faraday's experiments afford a species of illustration which may assist the reader's conception of the case. If a number of small pails or vessels are arranged within each other — all being insulated by the interposition of sheets of shellac or some other non-conducting substances — and if a ball charged with electricity be suspended within the innermost vessel, its inductive effects upon the whole set will express in some degree the action of the storm nucleus upon the remainder of the vaporous mass.

Nor is the intei'est of such a many-zoned cloud at all lessened by the fact that it produces a corresponding distribution of the electricity in. the earth beneath. Point for point, ring for ring, neeleus for nucleus, it calls up au answering tide of fluid in the ground by virtue of its inductive powers, the only difference being that the positive parts of the vapour above are represented by negative below, and vice versa. Thus, whilst a storm is raging, we are helplessly stationed between two excited masses, and if we were relatively as light as the paper figures or pitli balls which frolicsome young electricians delight to sec dancing between two metallic plates, we might almost expect to be turned into inoveable conductors, and kept mounting and descending until the troubled equilibrium was restored. Tims, too, whilst the stornicloud courses through the atmosphere, its electrical rival is travelling along the surface with equal rapidity, as if it were but the shadow of the tempest above ; and now and then the vivid flashes, darting from one nucleus to the other, or from one zone in the sty to another, in the earth, seem lite the shots .which armies moving by parallel patli3 sometimes exchange in their wroth or in their wanto-

ness,

It does not however require a professed thunderstorm to produce stupendous electrical displays. Mr. Crosses apparatus enabled him to read the secrets of a November Mist, and those who have frequently pushed their way through these cold raw dreary phenomena will be surprised to learn how often they may have been sheeted in fire, and how calmly they have passed through a furnace moi'e deadly than Nebuchadnezzar's, but without a hair of their heads being singed in the nV.ines. One day during that dismal month which Hood celebrates in a series of No-cs the philosopher was soated in liis hall of thunderbolts while a thick driving fog was darkening the air. Tor some time no symptoms of excitement were manifested by the exploring machines : the insulators were dripping wet ; and therefore carried oif all the electricity tlie wires received. But suddenly a smart dotonation was heard between the 2 balls ; others shortly followed and' then the explosions succeeded each other so swiftly that the ear could detect nothing but a continuous cra&h. Tliis was interrupted by the transition to the opposite kind of electricity after which a similar torrent of fluid was poured from one conducter to the other. So vivid was the rush of fire that the eye could not bear to survey it for a length of time. To l.aye touched one of those balls wh'lst the liquid lightning was gushing forth would have bej-n instant death. For upwards of five hours this splendid but appalling spectacle continued without even the slightest intermission except when the positive fluid was exchanged for the negative. Had. it not been for my exploring wire, says Mr. Crosse, I shonld not. have had the slightest idea of such an electrical accumulation in the atmosphere. The stream of fluid far exceeded anything I ever witnessed except during a thunderstorm. Had the insulators been dry, what -would have been the effect ? In every acre of fog there was enough of accumulated electricity to have destroyed every animal in that acre. Who could have supposed that a simple mist contained such potent lightnings ready to be issued at the word of command, and yet so masked and sheathed that but for the tell tale apparatus you would as soon imagined Vie dews to be saturated with fire. This, however, is no solitary exemplification of the skill with which the Great Forces of Nature are curbed and muflled when their activities would be injurious to man. The sea consists of two gases which if released from their combination, would produce the intensest flame and burn up every combustible thing vtpon the earth. The atmosphere is formed of elements which might easily be transformed into compounds, capable of poisoning, maddening, or suffocating every creature that breathes. The clouds which now discharge their contents in such harmless drops might pour out their burdens in a deluge as if some huge reser-voir-had burst in the sky, and crush every object that -lay beneath. The winds might sometimes be expected to break loose and, forgetting their prescribed pace, would gallop round the globe, tearing up our towns by the roots and driving men and trees before them like dust in a gale. The ties of chemical affinity might relax, or the cohesive forces might occasionally fail, and then the earth would crumble into a heap of sand. Thain-

ternal fires of the earth might master the resistance of the external shell, and shatter the surface at one stroke ; or collapsing in their fury, the ceiling of the gulf might give way and whole kingdoms go down into the burning abyss. Half an hour's! slumber on the part of the Almighty would liberate all these great powers from their present res* traints, and in that half hour the world would he reduced to a wreck. But He who holds the winds' in His fists, hides His thunderbolts in the drifting; vapour and chills the very lightnings so that men' walk unscathed through the deadliest magazine of mist.