ELECTRICITY AND MAGNETISM

IT has long been known that Electricity, Galvanism, and Magnetism are but different manifestations of the same force, and that one can be converted into the other at will. It is also known that this wonderful and most important principle lies latent in everything, and only needs the proper machinery to evoke it.

The few following illustrations are intended to show its prevalence in Nature, and that human art does not create, but only makes manifest a power that exists, but lies latent until called forth.

Without going into details, which would occupy the whole of such a volume as this, I may mention that Electricity saturates all the material creation, and that even man himself is not only a reservoir of electricity, but that he feels positively ill if the normal amount be not supplied.

Take, for example, the hours that precede a thunder-storm. We feel languid and depressed. We cannot bring our thoughts together. We are almost incapable even of bodily labour. The reason is, that the portion of the earth on which we live has parted with some of its electricity, and has drawn it out of our bodies.

Then comes the welcome thunder-storm; clouds overcharged with electricity come to restore the balance. The lightning flashes from the clouds to the earth as soon as they are near enough; the rain falls, carrying with it stores of silent electricity; and in an hour or two all seems changed.