A.D. 1753.—Prof. George William Richmann (1711–1753), native of Sweden and member of the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg, who had already constructed an apparatus for obtaining atmospherical electricity according to Franklin’s plans, was attending a meeting of the Russian Academy of Science, on the 6th of August, 1753, when his ear caught the sound of a very heavy thunder clap. He hastened away in company with his engraver, M. Sokolow, and upon their arrival home they found the plummet of the electrometer elevated four degrees from the perpendicular. Richmann stooped toward the latter to ascertain the force of the electricity, and “as he stood in that posture, a great white and bluish fire appeared between the rod of the electrometer and his head. At the same time a sort of steam or vapour arose, which entirely benumbed the engraver and made him sink on the ground.” Sokolow recovered, but Richmann had met with instant death.
References.—“Library of Useful Knowledge,” London, 1829; “Electricity,” p. 59, also p. 33; “Lettre sur la mort de Richmann,” par C. A. Rabiqueau, Paris, n. d.; “Comment. Acad. Petrop.,” XIV. pp. 23, 301–302, also the “Novi Comment.,” IV. pp. 25, 235 and 299; “Biog. Générale,” Vol. XLII. p. 258; “Gentleman’s Magazine,” London, Vol. XXIII., 1753, p. 431 and Vol. XXV. for 1755, p. 3; Singer, “Electricity,” p. 217; Harris, “Electricity,” p. 177; Phil. Trans., Vol. XLVIII. part ii. pp. 763–765, 772; also Vol. XLIX. part i. pp. 61, 67, and the abridgments by Hutton, Vol. X. pp. 525, 574–577; “La physique à la portée de tout le monde,” par le Père Paulian, Vol. II. p. 357; “Hist. de l’Acad. des Sciences,” pour 1753, p. 78; “Franklin in France,” 1888, Part. I. p. 5.
A.D. 1753.—Canton (John), an English savant (1718–1772), announces his most important discovery that vitreous or resinous electricity may be produced at will in the same tube. This he proves on taking a tube, which had been roughened by grinding it with thin sheet-lead and flour-of-emery mixed with water, and which developed vitreous electricity when rubbed with dry oil silk, and resinous or negative electricity when rubbed with new flannel. Rough quartz will, it is said, show like results. He also took a tube, of which only one-half had been made rough while the other half was polished, and he demonstrated that the different electricities are produced at a single stroke with the same rubber.
He likewise discovered that the exciting power of the rubber or cushion of the electrical machine will be very greatly increased by applying to it an amalgam of mercury and tin mixed with a little chalk or whiting (see Winckler, at A.D. 1733, for the introduction of the cushion).
His very remarkable experiments upon many descriptions of tourmaline, reported to the Royal Society in December 1759, were followed by many others detailed by Priestley, at pp. 298–301 of his “History of Electricity,” London, 1775, and Canton was the first to discover the electrical properties of the topaz, which latter were made known during the early part of the year 1760. (Consult Wilhelm Hankel, “Uber die therm. eigen. des Topases,” Leipzig, 1870.)
He was also the first to establish properly the fundamental fact of electrification by induction, or, as he terms it, “relating to bodies immerged in electric atmospheres,” which afterward led Wilcke (A.D. 1757) and Æpinus (A.D. 1759) to the method of charging a plate of air like a plate of glass, and to make the most perfect imitation of the phenomena of thunder and lightning (George Adams, “Essay on Electricity,” London, 1799, pp. 351–356; Noad, “Manual,” Chapter I, and Priestley, “History,” etc., s. 5). The paper containing an account of Canton’s experiments was read before the Royal Society, December 6, 1753. The principle enounced is that “the electric fluid, when there is a redundancy of it in any body, repels the electric fluid in any other body when they are brought within the sphere of each other’s influence and drives it into the remote parts of the body; or quite out of it, if there be any outlet for that purpose. In other words, bodies immerged in electric atmospheres always become possessed of the electricity contrary to that of the body in whose atmosphere they are immerged.”
Canton is the first to show that the air of a room can be electrified either positively or negatively, and can be made to retain the electricity when received. He thus explains his method: “Take a charged phial in one hand and a lighted candle insulated in the other, and, going into any room, bring the wire of the phial very near to the flame of the candle and hold it there about half a minute, then carry the phial and candle out of the room and return with the pith balls (suspended by fine linen threads) held out at arm’s length. The balls will begin to separate on entering the room and will stand an inch and a half or two inches apart when brought near the middle of it.”
The construction of artificial magnets by Canton, through the combination of the Duhamel (A.D. 1749) and the Michell (A.D. 1750) methods, as well as without the aid of natural loadstones or artificial magnets, is detailed by Noad at Chapter XV of his “Manual,” London, 1859.
References.—Phil. Trans., Vol. XXXV. p. 137 (Berlinghieri, V. L.); Vol. XXXVII. p. 294 (Marcel, A.); Vol. XLVII. p. 31; Vol. XLVIII. part i. pp. 350, 356, and Part II. pp. 780, 782 and 784, also Vol. XLIX. part i. p. 300; Vol. LI. pp. 398, 403, and Vol. LII. part ii. pp. 457, 461; and the abridgments of Hutton, Vol. X. pp. 131, 421, 532; Vol. XI. pp. 421, 609; A.D. 1722, and A.D. 1752; “A Course of Lectures on Nat. Philos. and the Mechanical Arts,” by Thos. Young, London, 1807, Vol. I. p. 372; II. pp. 64, 243; “The Electrical Researches of Hon. Hy. Cavendish,” 1879, Nos. 117, 205; Descriptions and Drawings of the various electric friction machines can be seen in Priestley’s “History,” Plates IV-VIII, and in Albrecht’s “Geschichte d. Electricität,” 1885, pp. 20–30; Acta Acad. Petr., I., 1778; “Gentleman’s Magazine” for Sept. 1759. See likewise the Phil. Trans. for Monday, January 21, 1666, p. 375, and George Adams’ “Essay on Electricity,” etc., London, 1799, p. 579, for method of making the artificial Bolonian stone or Canton’s phosphorus.
A.D. 1753.—Beccaria (Giovanni Baptista) (1716–1781), a very ingenious and industrious Italian electrician and astronomer, is the author of several quite important works on electricity.