Mazéas erected, in the upper section of his residence, a magazine consisting of several insulated iron bars connected with the pointed rod. The lightning was brought into the house by means of a projecting wooden pole, having at its extremity a glass tube filled with resin which received a pointed iron rod twelve feet long. This apparatus was, however, too much exposed to afford reliable observations, and Mazéas therefore arranged to make more accurate experiments at the Château de Maintenon, during the months of June, July and October 1753. The results he obtained were communicated to the English Royal Society by Dr. Stephen Hales. The letters of the Abbé Mazéas to the Rev. Stephen Hales, detailing some of M. Le Monnier’s experiments as well as observations made by M. Ludolf at Berlin and transmitted by M. Euler, are to be found at pp. 354–552, Vol. XLVII. Phil. Trans. for 1753. For Mazéas, see also Phil. Trans., Vol. XLVII. p. 534, Vol. XLVIII. part i. p. 377, and Hutton’s abridgments, Vol. X. pp. 289, 434.
Thomas Ronayne in Ireland, and Andrew Crosse[51] in England (see “Account of an apparatus for ascertaining and collecting the electricity of the atmosphere”) made use of long wires in horizontal positions insulated by being attached to glass pillars, but Mazéas, in his Maintenon experiments, attached the iron wire by a silken cord to the top of a steeple ninety feet in height, whence it entered an upper room of the castle, a total distance of 370 feet. With this, Mazéas ascertained that electric effects are produced at all hours of the day during clear, dry and particularly hot weather, the presence of a thunderstorm not being requisite for the production of atmospheric electricity. In the driest summer nights he could discover no signs of electricity in the air, but when the sun reappeared the electricity accompanied it, to vanish again in the evening about half an hour after sunset.
References.—W. Sturgeon, “Lectures,” London, 1842, pp. 182, 183; Phil. Trans., Vol. XLVIII. part i. pp. 370, 377, etc.; Dalibard’s “Franklin,” Vol. II. p. 109, etc.; “Mém. de l’Acad. des Sciences,” for May, 1762; Nollet, “Letters,” Vol. I. p. 9; Franklin’s Works, Vol. V. p. 288; English Cyclopædia, “Arts and Sciences,” Vol. III. pp. 804–805; “Letters of Thomas Ronayne, to Benjamin Franklin,” at p. 137 of Vol. LXII of Phil. Trans., likewise Ronayne both in Journal de Physique, Tome VI, and in the Phil. Trans. for 1772, Vol. LII. pp. 137–140; also Hutton’s abridgments, Vol. XIII. p. 310; Geo. Adams, “Essay on Elect.,” London, 1785, p. 259.
A.D. 1752.—Freke (John), surgeon to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, gives, in the Second Part of “A Treatise ... of Fire,” the third edition of his “Essay to Show the Cause of Electricity,” etc., originally published in 1746, while in the Third Part of the same work he shows the “Mechanical Cause of Magnetism, and why the compass varies in the manner it does.”
He says (pp. 90–91): “It had been impossible that this wonderful Phenomenon of Electricity should ever have been discovered, if there had not been such things as are non-electricable; for, as fast as this Fire had been driven on anything its next neighbour would have carried it farther; but, when it was most wonderfully found, that anything which was suspended on a silk cord (that being non-electricable) was obliged to retain the Fire, which by Electrical Force was driven on it; and when, moreover, it appeared, that any person or thing, being placed on a cake of beeswax (which is also a non-electricable) could no more part with its Fire than when suspended in [sic] a silk cord; I think it will become worthy of inquiry, why they are not electricable.” And, at p. 136, he adds: “I think it a great pity that the word Electricity should ever have been given to so wonderful a Phenomenon, which might properly be considered as the first principle in nature. Perhaps the word Vivacity might not have been an improper one; but it is too late to think of changing a name it has so long obtain’d.” In the Third Part, he explains that “by the Fire passing from and to the Sun, it so pervades iron aptly placed, as to make it attractive and produce the various operations of magnetism.”
Reference.—“Gentleman’s Magazine,” London, Vol. XVI for 1746, pp. 521, 557.
A.D. 1752.—In this year was published at Leipzig the “Biblia Naturæ,” written by John Swammerdam, a celebrated Dutch natural philosopher (1637–1682), all of whose works were translated into English and published in folio during the year 1758.
In the second volume of the Biblia, he thus alludes to one of many experiments made by him in 1678, before the Grand Duke of Tuscany: “Let there be a cylindrical glass tube in the interior of which is placed a muscle, whence proceeds a nerve that has been enveloped in its course with a small silver wire, so as to give us the power of raising it without pressing it too much or wounding it. This wire is made to pass through a ring bored in the extremity of a small copper support and soldered to a sort of piston or partition; but the little silver wire is so arranged that on passing between the glass and the piston the nerve may be drawn by the hand and so touch the copper. The muscle is immediately seen to contract.”
Through Swammerdam, the Germans lay claim to the origin of what has been called galvanism. It certainly cannot be denied that the above-described experiment closely resembles that which made Galvani famous (A.D. 1786).
References.—Swammerdam’s Biography, also Dissertation Fifth, in the eighth edition “Encycl. Brit.”; the note at p. 491 of Ronalds’ “Catalogue”; “Gen. Biog. Dict.,” London, 1816, Vol. XXIX. pp. 45–47; Eloy, “Dict. Hist. de la Méd.,” Vol. IV; “Biog. Générale,” Vol. XLIV. pp. 706–708; Cuvier, “Hist. des Sc. Naturelles,” Vol. II. pp. 427–433; Schelhorn, “Amænitates liter.,” Vol. XIV; “Biblioth. Hulthemiana,” Gand, 1836, Vol. II; Boerhaave, Preface to “Biblia Naturæ.”