Alphabet of electricity for the use of beginners / by W. Mullinger Higgins.

  • Higgins, W. Mullinger (William Mullinger)
Date:
1834
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Alphabet of electricity for the use of beginners / by W. Mullinger Higgins. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The term Electricity has, in the present day, a much wider signification than was given to it at any former period. The science, even in its most restricted sense, was quite unknown to the ancient philosophers, and has only recently received an adequate attention from the students of nature. It is true that Thales, Theo- phrastus, Pliny, and others of the learned Greeks and Romans, were acquainted with one electrical pheno- menon, but they had not the most remote idea of the agent that produced it, much less of its extensive dis- tribution, and its general influence upon bodies. In the writings of these philosophers, it is stated that amber has the property, when rubbed, of attracting small pieces of straw and other light substances. This was almost the only electrical phenomenon known till the year 1600, when Dr. Gilbert, a judicious and learned observer, published a work on magnetism, in which he mentioned several new facts attributable to electrical agency, drew the attention of philosophers to this long-
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