THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY A HISTORY BY PARK BENJAMIN, PH.D., LL.B. MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS, AMERICAN SOCIETY "Not the fact, but so much of man as is in the fact." LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. EMERSON. In this work I attempt to show how there came into the world the knowledge of the natural force, which we call electricity; a force which, within the memory of many now living, has found its most important applications to the needs of mankind, and which exhibits a promise and potency of future benefit, the full extent of which no one can safely venture to predict. The research has taken many years, has necessitated the gathering of a large collection of ancient, and now exceedingly scarce, writings, not commonly found even in great libraries, and the sifting of an immense mass of recorded facts and theories, often arising in fields far removed from those in which it might naturally be supposed the requisite data would be discovered. The Greek and Roman classics, the results of modern investigation into the old civilizations of Phoenicia, Egypt and even of people of prehistoric epochs, the Norse histories, the ancient writings of the Chinese and Arabs, the treatises of the Fathers of the Church, the works of medieval monks, magicians, cosmographers and navigators, the early poetry of modern France and Italy; these, mentioned at random, are some of the sources which have been drawn upon, together with the records of the experiments and discoveries of the natural philosophers of all ages. I have made it a rule to note the original founts wherever it seemed to me that such references would be of benefit to others desiring to verify facts or to go over the same ground, and as providing a useful bibliography; while, at the same time, I have endeavored to avoid a multiplicity of annotations |