I do not know any inquiry more promising than the investigation of the properties of nitre, the nitrous acid, and nitrous air. Some of the most wonderful phenomena in nature are connected with them, and the subject seems to be fully within our reach.
§ 2. Speculations arising from the consideration of the similarity of the electric matter and phlogiston.
There is nothing in the history of philosophy more striking than the rapid progress of electricity. Nothing ever appeared more trifling than the first effects which were observed of this agent in nature, as the attraction and repulsion of straws, and other light substances. It excited more attention by the flashes of light which it exhibited. We were more seriously alarmed at the electrical shock, and the effects of the electrical battery; and we were astonished to the highest degree by the discovery of the similarity of electricity with lightning, and the aurora borealis, with the connexion it seems to have with water-spouts, hurricanes, and earthquakes, and also with the part that is probably assigned to it in the system of vegetation, and other the most important processes in nature.
Yet, notwithstanding all this, we have been, within a few years, more puzzled than ever with the electricity of the torpedo, and of the anguille temblante of Surinam, especially since that most curious discovery of Mr. Walsh's, that the former of these wonderful fishes has the power of giving a proper electrical shock; the electrical matter which proceeds from it performing a real circuit from one part of the animal to the other; while both the fish which performs this experiment and all its apparatus are plunged in water, which is known to be a conducting substance.
Perhaps, however, by considering this fact in connexion with a few others, and especially with what I have lately observed concerning the identity of electricity and phlogiston, a little light may be thrown upon this subject, in consequence of which we may be led to consider electricity in a still more important light. Many of my readers, I am aware, will smile at what I am going to advance; but the apprehension of this shall not interrupt my speculations, how chimerical soever they may be thought to be.
The facts, the consideration of which I would combine with that of the electricity of the torpedo, are the following.
First, The remarkable electricity of the feathers of a paroquet, observed by Mr. Hartmann, an account of which may be seen in Mr. Rozier's Journal for Sept. 1771. p. 69. This bird never drinks, but often washes itself; but the person who attended it having neglected to supply it with water for this purpose, its feathers appeared to be endued with a proper electrical virtue, repelling one another, and retaining their electricity a long time after they were plucked from the body of the bird, just as they would have done if they had received electricity from an excited glass tube.
Secondly, The electric matter directed through the body of any muscle forces it to contract. This is known to all persons who attend to what is called the electrical shock; which certainly occasions a proper convulsion, but has been more fully illustrated by Father Beccaria. See my History of Electricity, p. 402.
Lastly, Let it be considered that the proper nourishment of an animal body, from which the source and materials of all muscular motion must be derived, is probably some modification of phlogiston. Nothing will nourish that does not contain phlogiston, and probably in such a state as to be easily separated from it by the animal functions.
That the source of muscular motion is phlogiston is still more probable, from the consideration of the well known effects of vinous and spirituous liquors, which consist very much of phlogiston, and which instantly brace and strengthen the whole nervous and muscular system; the phlogiston in this case being, perhaps, more easily extricated, and by a less tedious animal process, than in the usual method of extracting it from mild aliments. Since, however, the mildest aliments do the same thing more slowly and permanently, that spirituous liquors do suddenly and transiently, it seems probable that their operation is ultimately the same.