^'^^>if?'1? :h'^i' wm soy BOUGHT WITH THE INCO FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT THE GIFT OF Henr|3 W, Sags 1S91 ME FUND A'^s^'S'fS' ■'"' ■■' r 1 Cornell University Library QC 507.B51 The intellectual rise in electricity; a h mil nil iiiiiiii 111 iiiiiiiiiMiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii 3 1924 012 334 433 Cornell University Library The original of tiiis bool< is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924012334433 Q-.. W/r iff J// ■ y/ /reii't /■■/.'Hi /, ■,■■/,, /A. !'■',■<. /ij,i'/ :'/',f'/r,,/.t..t/n-tl. //,, .-/;...//, '■W.,:ry.^'.y THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY A HISTORY BY PARK BENJAMIN, PH.D., LL.B. MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS, AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERS. ASSOCIATE MfeMBER OF THE SOCIETY OF NAVAL ARCHITECTS AND MARINE SOfGINEERS, ETC. ' Not the fact, but sc much of man as is in the fact.'' Emerson. NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1895 copyeight, 1895, By park benjamin All rights reserved. PREFACE. 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 ex- ceedingly 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 re- moved 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 an- cient writings of the Chinese and Arabs, the treatises of the Fathers of the Church, the works of mediaeval 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 pro- viding a useful bibliography ; while, at the same time, I have endeavored to avoid a multiplicity of annotations (3) 4 PREFACE. relative to immaterial points, which impose only needless labor and uncertainty upon the student. Above all things, I have sought to write a straight, plain, simple, and, I hope, fairly logical and interesting story. I have rigidly excluded technicalities and scien- tific demonstrations, which, however interesting to the professional electrician, are as Greek to the general reader ; for I address this no more to the wise men of the wires and the dynamos and the batteries, than to the great pub- lic whom we all serve, and for whose good we all labor. Popular science, so called, is too often dilute science. Scientific discussions of a didactic or abstract nature, or involving a Babylonish terminology, and requiring minds trained to understand them, cannot be rendered any easier to the mental digestion of intellects engrossed in other departments of the world's work, and, hence, not so edu- cated, by mechanically mixing them with the water of an engaging rhetoric. The facts and the arguments based on them must be digested and brought into true solution, so that the food offered will be easily assimilable ; and that is what I have tried here to do. Perhaps this work may usefully tend to show that elec- tricity, at the present time, is not "in its infancy." It has undoubtedly a vast amount of work yet to do, and — I am patriotic enough to believe at the hands of our Amer- ican inventors, first of all — will yet accomplish things un- dreamt of in our philosophy ; but it will do this not with the feeble uncertainty of the nursling, but with the vigor and might of maturity. Moreover, although in ancient days electricity, in common with all other natural mani- festations, was regarded as a mystery, none the less the knowledge of it, as these pages seek to prove, forced its way through the clouds of ignorance and superstition with the unerring directness of a projectile driven through the mist from a modern gun. Electricity is not now occult, it is not mystic, it is not magic, its workings are no more wonderful than are tht rise and fall of the tides ; in fact, it PREFACE. t may be safely said, that we know more about its laws anc tlieir consequences than we do about those which deter- mine the fall of a stone to the ground. I end this essay — which has been more of pleasure tliar of toil — fully conscious of the errors and inconsistencie; which must be in it. At every turn there have been tan gled skeins to unravel, whereof the true clews have, nc doubt, often been missed ; diverging roads, where one selects a path never without misgivings. But with al due submission, I venture to believe that a faithful effort even if misdirected, is better than none at all, although ir that consciousness may well lie the only justification fo: this book. Park Benjamin. CONTENTS. PAGB Introduction n CHAPTER I. Ancient sources of amber 15 Amber legends 16 The Syrian women and their amber spindles 17 The lodestone 19 I/odestone legends 22 Greek knowledge of the lodestone and the Samothracian rings. . . 23 The Magnetes 26 Egyptian knowledge of the lodestone .... 28 Magnetic knowledge of the Hebrews 29 CHAPTER II. The opening of the Egyptian ports 30 Greek Nature-worship 31 Thales of Miletus and the beginning of Greek philosophy 32 The Magnet-soul 33 Diogenes Laertius on Thales ^4 Aristotle and the foreshadowing of the inductive method 38 'Theophrastus, and the first physical description of the amber effect . 39 - The mythical Lyncurium 41 The University of Alexandria 44 Legends of magnetic suspension — Mahomet's cofEn 45 . Lucretius' De Natura Rerum and its description of magnetic effects . 47 Ancient medical uses of amber =2 CHAPTER IIL The polarity of the magnet 53 Unknown to ancient Greeks 54 Or to ancient Phoenician navigators rg The Betute ^6 No knowledge of polarity among ancient Egyptians 57 Or among the Etruscans eg Polarity possibly known to the prehistoric Nomad races 61 Relations of Akkadians and Chinese 6-? Ancient China and Chinese chronology 64 The Chinese south-pointing carts ' 57 (vi) CONTENTS. vii PAGE Liicient Chinese knowledge of amber and of the geomancer's Com- pass 75 'he Chinese not natural navigators 77 for reliable astronomers 79 for competent inventors 80 'he Mariner's Compass probably not of Chinese origin 85 CHAPTER IV. 'he Dark Ages and the rise of Scholasticism 86 'irst distinction between magnetic and electric effects drawn by St. Augustine 87 'atristic references to the lodestone and amber 9c )ld medical uses of the lodestone 93 Haudian's Idyl 93 riie Fables of the Magnetic Rocks 96 i.ncient Arab navigation 102 The Compass not used in early voyages on the Indian Ocean .... 103 •Jor by the Spanish Saracens ic8